


Half-Breed

by MoonviewRising



Category: Jurassic Park Original Trilogy (Movies), Jurassic World Trilogy (Movies), Young Justice (Cartoon), Young Justice - All Media Types
Genre: Child Abuse, Cross-Posted on FanFiction.Net, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Isolation, Multi, Past Abuse, Physical Abuse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Rehabilitation, Torture, minor aspects of the videogame The Isle
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-10
Updated: 2021-02-04
Packaged: 2021-03-14 06:33:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 29,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28666287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MoonviewRising/pseuds/MoonviewRising
Summary: Three years after the tragic incident at Jurassic World, an ambassador's plane crashes on Isla Nublar's infamous sister Isla Sorna. Sent to rescue him from almost certain death the team encounters not just deadly dinosaurs and injured people, but a boy. A boy who lives with the Velociraptors as if he was one of their own, which wasn't very far from the truth.
Relationships: Artemis Crock/Wally West, Kon-El | Conner Kent/M'gann M'orzz
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: alright, so a friend of mine and I were talking about stories and we began talking about one that we had the same idea for, just with some differences, and this story was born.   
> Now, I know I should be working on the Allies sequel and I am! But I’ve had this one bouncing around in my head almost just as long as the first part of that series!  
> So I don’t own Jurassic Park series, the Isle, or Young Justice.

“Vic is dead,” one of the InGen personnel informed as the helicopter flew away.

Dr. Henry Wu sighed, it shouldn’t have been surprising, that man was a fool, always charging in believing he could control a situation. Vic Hoskins was very excited and had given the authorization he needed to start the Asset X Program they began after receiving some charitable donations from their benefactor; his death would be a setback.

A setback, but it would not stop the program.

It had been difficult creating the hybrids, but he managed to prefect it for the day he knew Masrani would want something “cooler” for some point after the new park’s planned opening. He had to perfect hybridization before creating the X Assets, and it had taken many long years before he created his prized A1 from some DNA samples their partner managed to procure for him. He didn’t even want to count the failures he had before his success.

And he’d be damned to hell if Hoskins’ death resulted in Asset X discovery. “Head for Isla Sorna.”

“Sorry sir, we have orders to take you to headquarters,” the pilot replied.

“I need to get something from Isla Sorna,” the scientist growled.

“Sorry sir, but orders were to take you to the compound and to abandon Isla Sorna. Everyone’s already been evacuated and the assets inside the facility are in transport, however there was a report that one of the X Assets escaped.”

“Damn it!” Wu cursed, odds were that A1 was the one who got out of containment. It wouldn’t be the first time. The others X Assets were more compliant, but A1 had always been decidedly more hostile than the others, not as bad as A2 but at least A2 was cooperative and understood her place. There were only a few select people A1 would listen to, and unless one of them were present A1 fought with everything he had to escape, going as far as to even critically injure several of his guards. Though that shouldn’t really have been a surprise given his parents. However, it could just be the raptor genes, his predecessors—those _failures_ —had been unnaturally bloodthirsty as well.

“If it’s so important sir we can ask headquarters to send a team to retrieve it.”

“Do it,” he said. At least his other assets were already in transit to a safe location for proper training.

-.-

On the island of Isla Sorna a eleven-year-old boy ran through the familiar forests. His white clothes were torn and stained in several places from blood and dirt. The clothing rubbed up against his scale-patches, making them itch.

Hearing snapping behind him he leapt up into a tree and dug his dark claws into the bark, climbing up to the nearest branch he looked down to see several of the guards the doctor had left to watch him when he wasn’t around.

“A1, where’d you go?” one said as he came out. “Now’s not the time for hide-and-seek.” Looking up he smiled as he saw the human-velociraptor hybrid in the tree. “There you are, come on down. I promise we won’t hurt you.”

The boy hissed, his pupils narrowing into thin slits, and baring his fangs, his tail swinging back and forth in anger. The man was lying, he could smell it, a person’s scent always changed when they lied.

He didn’t like these guards, they were always cruel. They demeaned, dehumanized, and hurt him despite his requests for them to stay away and they always retaliated viciously when he defended himself. They were the ones who ordered the muzzle and chains.

The only nice humans he knew were the Doctor, Master, and Caretaker.

The Doctor taught him reading, writing, math, science, history; saying something that only fools were uneducated. But even then, the Doctor hurt him, running numerous tests on him to see what he was capable of, and “modifying” him when he saw fit.

Master was what the man who had been teaching him to fight demanded to be called. He always liked the weeks Master came in, sparring was the man was like roughhousing with the pack. While Master could be rough and firm, he did occasionally show a softer side and let him out of training early if he did well. He’d also been the one to give him his human name “Onyx.”

Caretaker was the one who raised him when he couldn’t be with his mother in the pack. She read him stories and gave him tasty treats, and she was always there to tend to his injuries after the guards and was the only human he could trust.

These guards were not Caretaker.

**“Help! Mama! Help!”**

The guard took a step back as the terrifyingly familiar distress call of a raptor tore its way out of the boy’s throat and was answered with the bushes shaking. A red dappled grey raptor leapt out of the bushes with a shriek as she got between him and the hybrid.

“Shit,” the guard cursed, it was Titania the alpha female who claimed the boy as a member of the pack when they watched Wu introduce them in captivity when he was one. She had also been the one to raise him whenever Dr. Wu or _that man_ placed him in the pack to test something; or he escaped and managed to make his way back. Needless to say she was never happy when he was taken away from the pack, the raptors had killed several of their men when they were trying to take him back to containment.

And one thing was clear with Titania, you never messed with her babies. **“Kill him!”** The rest of the pack came out and he started running through the forest, as the raptors chased after. **“Are you hurt, Nightmare?”** she asked licking her adopted child’s cheek and nudging his skinny frame under her.

 **“I’m fine,** ” Onyx answered nuzzling her snout, as the other raptors tore the man who hurt their hatchling apart.


	2. The Crash

**A/N: I just own the story and the main character.**

**“Velociraptor is in bold”**

**_Telepathy/flashback_ **

** 3 years later: July 13, 2:41 **

“El aviòn aterrizará pronto [the plane will be landing soon]” the stewardess said to the ambassador.

“Gracias [thank you]” he replied. “Cuánto tiempo [how long]?”

“Cuatro horas [4 hours].”

“De acuerdo, gracias [ok, thank you]” the ambassador said. The flight was taking longer than usual, mostly because of a storm in the middle of the Pacific, but they would still have enough fuel to make it back.

“Abroche sus cinturones de seguridad, estamos experimentando turbulencia [fasten your seatbelts, we’re experiencing turbulence]” the piolet warned as the light came on.

Looking out the window the ambassador saw what appeared to be a minor tropical storm. Taking a breath he clutched his seat as the plane shook with the turbulence. A bright flash forced him to open his eyes. “Fue ese rayo [was that lightning]?”

Lightning struck again and the plane fell out of the sky.

-.-

** Isla Sorna **

Onyx peered towards the exit of the den the established within the compound after the humans left, they normally cuddled within during storms like this, rain was cold and wasn’t good for the eggs; the compound provided both protection and insulation for when the adults weren’t present. Yawning, he crawled over several of the others and sat at the entrance. A flash exploded throughout the sky, nearly blinding the hybrid as he jerked his arm up to shield his sensitive eyes. Once the blinding light died down, he looked out to see a fireball falling down from the sky landing near the expanse of flat rock.

 **“Nightmare,”** Titania called. “ **Back in the nest.”**

**“Something landed in the marshlands.”**

**“We shall investigate it tomorrow, if the Spines have not reached it first,”** she replied as he crawled back to his spot. Titania gently puffed air in his direction before licking his cheek **“Get some rest, we hunt tomorrow.”**

Yawning, he gave one last look at the stormy sky before curling his tail around himself and settling down for the night.

-.-

** Mt. Justice: 8:45 **

“What’s the emergency?” Aqualad asked as the team came in.

“We’ve recently received information that the Costa Rican Ambassador’s plane crashed on the way back from Australia. Your mission is to go rescue him and the crew of the plane,” Batman stated.

“A rescue mission, seriously? Why send us to get a man who’s trapped on some deserted island?” Kid Flash scoffed.

Batman narrowed his eyes. “This ‘deserted island’ is known to the locals as ‘la Isla de la Muerte’. Otherwise known as Isla Sorna, Isla Nubar’s sister island and Site B for Jurassic World. It is the largest island in the island chain known as the Five Deaths, where they studied the dinosaurs in a more natural habitat.” The team gulped, they heard about the numerous incidences on the deadly islands. “There’s only one fence running through the middle of the island, one containment area for the Pteranodons, and avoid the water at any cost.”

“That answer your question?” Robin growled.

“Yes.”

“Due to the highly dangerous nature of the islands and the fact this is the team’s first real mission, Wonder Woman is going to be accompanying you due to her experience with large creatures,” Batman stated. “Get going, the longer they remain on the island, the less likely it is that they’re alive.”

Nodding they ran to the ship. “Geez…this is…kinda scary,” Wally said rubbing his knee. “No fences, no roads, no people. We’ll be in the middle of dino-territory.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” Superboy grumbled.

“Do you…do you think we’ll encounter the velociraptors?” M’gann asked. “I’ve heard that they’re pretty nasty.”

“Don’t know, let’s hope not, no one knows what’s on the island exactly. It wasn’t exactly a tourist destination,” Robin said. “Rumor had it that there was a Spinosaurus.”

“This’ll be fun.”

“Correction, this will be extremely dangerous,” Aqualad corrected. “No one goes anywhere alone, keep your comm-links open. M’gann establish a telepathic link once we land just in case the comms go out or we need to out maneuver anything.”

“What do you mean out maneuver anything? They’re animals, they can’t be that smart,” Kid scoffed as they walked into the Bioship.

“Actually Wallace, according to numerous accounts of survivors of the first Park, the San Diego T-Rex Incident, and a rescue mission on Isla Sorna the velociraptors are actually highly intelligent,” Wonder Woman informed causing the speedster to freeze in embarrassment as the Amazon boarded. “Dr. Grant, who was at the first park, and on the rescue mission personally observed them and described the complex calls and strategies they came up with to ambush their prey.”

Robin jumped in his seat, adding in, “And Owen Grady, the Jurassic World raptor trainer noted their extreme intelligence: they can take orders, recognize who’s in charge and a member of their pack, and can strategize their own attack patterns. Even reported the pack Beta giving him sass. And during the rescue Dr. Grant’s assistant reported the raptors setting a trap, by injuring one of their team and hiding nearby. And when they saw him they almost climbed down when two of the raptors pounced early and nearly got them. They escaped only by getting back up the tree. And apparently once they realized the trap was a bust the raptors killed the man because they knew he was no use to them any longer. And during the San Diego capture mission, the raptors ambushed the group when they ran into the tall grass, using it as camouflage so they couldn’t see them coming. They ended up killing most of them.”

The team sat down in silence, if there were raptors still on Isla Sorna, they were in deep trouble. “Let’s hope we don’t run into any,” M’gann gulped as they took off.

“Yeah, though I brought this just in case,” Robin said holding a construction of a resonating chamber. “Bats got it from someone who worked with the raptors, it was standard issue to have one just in case they fell into the cage.”

“Why?”

“Well, this mimics the sounds they release so they get confused,” he explained.

“You have more of those?” Wally asked.

“Sorry, just this one,” the Boy Wonder said.

“Anyone know any other dangers on Isla Sorna?” Aqualad asked.

“The herbivores, while normally harmless get them into a stampede they can kill someone,” Wally added. “And there’s the famous ones with horns, and spiked or clubbed tails, those could easily kill someone. However, if we don’t provoke them we should be fine.”

“There’s T-rex and other large carnivores on the island too,” M’gann stated. “We’ll also have to watch out for the flyers, they can swoop down at any moment.”

“I even heard a rumor that they were working on creatures from the Cenezoic period,” Robin grinned. “Masrani made a comment a couple years ago about mammoth rides that I overheard when Bats and I were waiting on a rumor that the Scarecrow was going to attack.”

“Which will probably include the predators from that era too.”

“Of course our official first mission was going to go smoothly!” KF sarcastically cheered.

“Look at the bright side Wally, you’re going to get some pretty amazing souvenirs,” M’gann smiled.

“True. Maybe I could grab an egg!”

“Bad idea, if it’s a velociraptor nest they’ll chase us all over the island, that’s what they did to the rescue group after one of them took the eggs,” Robin informed.

“Ok, maybe a lone Compy!”

“NO!” they all shouted.

“Fine…maybe a bone, eggshell, or a scale…oh! A tooth that fell loose!”

“That would be pretty cool,” Robin grinned.

“Get ready, we’re on route for Isla Sorna.”

-.-

Nightmare yawned and stretched as dawn broke. Sniffing the air he caught several odd scents, one which smelled strongly of blood nearby. Was it whatever fell from the sky? Did it come to the nest? Or did some of the larger carnivores kill something big?

Whatever it was seemed familiar, but it didn’t smell like any of the predators on the islands, not even the mammalian ones they ate from time to time.

Crawling over his still sleeping pack he stepped out of the den, looking back he wondered if he should wait for the others to investigate. Shaking his head he ran out of the news in the general direction of the crash. He could investigate later, right now, his first priority was food.

Hearing a squawk, he stopped on a ledge and looked down, spotting one of the strange fat feathered birds with large beaks that wandered around, if he was remembering correctly it was called a dodo. Considering how often they were hunted though it was surprising that they hadn’t been wiped off of the island yet like some other species had been.

It was looking away from him, probably didn’t know he was there, and even if it did spot him, they weren’t very fast and they couldn’t fly. Crouching down he crept forwards before lunging and catching the squirming pest, he bit down on it till the feathery creature finally stopped moving. Holding his meal in his jaws, he climbed up into the safety of the trees before spitting out a mouthful of feathers.

Dropping the last bone as he finished his meal, Onyx stood up and dug his claws back into the bark before climbing higher and looking over the other trees. He could see where some of the trees were broken or fallen, no doubt from what fell from the sky.

Crawling back down he ran for the landing area for whatever fell from the sky.

-.-

“Ambassador!”

“Ambassador Ramerez!”

Groaning the dignitary sat up and looked around, they were in an abandoned building by the looks of it. “Where are we Garratt?”

The assistant shrugged. “Not sure, the pilot and copilot couldn’t get a signal out. We came here last night after spotting it in the storm.”

“Is everyone alright?”

“Pilot’s dead. I have a few bruises and scrapes. One stewardess has a few cuts and a broken wrist. Copilot has some cuts and a possible concussion. You have a broken arm, possible concussion by the way you’ve been knocked out for the past few hours, and some cuts. The other stewardess was the worst off, fractured wrist, cuts, bruising, possible damage to ribs, and a sprained ankle,” he explained. “After the plane crashed we managed to get here with little issue.”

“What is this place?”

“Seems to be some sort of research complex—or what’s left of it—I’d guess a weather station or a marine life research facility.”

“Sir!” the pilot said. “You’ll want to see this.”

Getting up the ambassador and assistant followed him into a room filled with eggs broken eggs, and little developing embryos in tubes that had died a long time ago. “Is it just me, or do these look like…”

“Dinosaurs,” Garratt said.

“We’re on Isla Nublar?”

“No,” the Garratt said, “we’d see the resort if we were. We could be anywhere in Las Cinco Muertes.”

A small shrill cry echoed through the building, going down a hall, seeing a room full of cages they froze as they saw several baby velociraptors gnawing on a large femur.

“Shit.”


	3. Risks of the Mission

**A/N: I only own the story.**

**/comm/**

**_Telepathy_ **

**“Velociraptor”**

** Isla Sorna: July 13, 9:33 **

Nightmare crouched at the edge of the tree line, he could see the wreckage of the plane. The wings were still stuck in the broken trees. Taking a sniff, he crept out, the Spines had not been near this area for days and he could smell the pack coming behind him, no doubt following his scent.

Spotting something through the shattered glass, he hopped onto the nose of the plane. He curled his lip at what he saw inside; a human, male. He was obviously dead, wide glassy eye, a massive hunk of metal impaled in his chest, and he was missing half his face.

Huffing, he crawled through the broken windshield, crawling onto a second bloodstained chair, bearing a different scent than the dead one. Sniffing around the wreckage he saw some torn fabric and caught another distinct scent. So that put two live humans so far.

Crouching by another pool of blood, he frowned, same human, probably severely injured if not dead by now. He prowled around the small anteroom, sniffing to make sure he didn’t miss anything before moving on to search the rest of the crash. While the room was covered in blood, he swore he could smell another scent. Stopping by one of the cleaner chairs, he pressed his nose into the fabric. Another human, so three alive so far.

Now to search the rest of the plane. Onyx crouched down, carefully pushing aside the tattered curtain to determine his next course of action. The barrel of the plane was empty, nothing except for a few blood spattered seats, a tear in the side where the wing had once been. Judging from the blood leading to the tear, he would bet that’s where they escaped.

However, that didn’t explain the blood he could see on the seats. There was a clear exit from the torn side, there’d be no logical reason to head for those spots. He sprung onto the seats, crawling over them onto the bloodstained chairs. Sniffing the area, he found not one but two scents. Adding two more humans to his list of those still alive…or possibly alive. Four humans, all were injured, but by the smell of it one was hurt the more than the others, it left the most blood.

Pity more of them couldn’t die in the crash. That would be far more merciful in comparison to what lied ahead.

Especially now that he was going to tell the Alpha they were here. **“Human.”**

 **“How many?”** Titania asked.

**“One dead. Four still alive. All injured. I caught their scent near the nest this morning but I thought it might’ve just been the wind shifting the scent.”**

Titania and several of the pack members snorted, injured humans were always easy kills. The alpha female stepped forwards and licked her strange hatchling’s scaled cheek **“You’re young, mistakes are easy to make,”** she reassured before turning to the rest of the pack, **“LET’S HUNT THESE TRESPASSERS!”**

Each raptor tossed their head up in a resounding screech, fallowing the scent trail. Reaching the compound he slid inside, testing the air he caught their scent. **“Look around, be quiet, call if you find them.”**

The others that snuck in nodded and walked off as he headed for the nest.

Unfortunately, it reeked of human, making his lip curl as a low growl started to form. If they hurt his siblings, then Nightmare would show them how he earned his name.

“What are we gonna do?”

“I don’t know. Think we should kill it?”

“And piss the parents off? No thanks.”

“I think we should take one of ‘em, be worth a fortune.”

**“Lemme go! Momma! Dada!”**

**“Hold on.”**

**“Nightmare! Those monsters took Grey!”** the hatchlings whimpered running under their big brother’s legs.

 **“FOUND THE HUMANS! GET TO THE NEST!”** he called, before crouching next to his siblings releasing a deep rumble from the back of his throat to help calm them down. **“Hide in the little areas, the ones we play hide-and-shriek in, come out when the others get here, I’ll get Grey.”**

 **“Ok!”** they chirped running off to their favorite hiding spot.

“Hear that?” Ramerez asked.

“Yeah, I heard it,” the stewardess said glaring at the copilot holding the hatchling. The small raptor bit him, making him drop the tiny thing, it cried out and tried to get up crying out loudly.

“Damn thing bit me!”

“Geez I wonder why, not like you were holding it in a choke-hold or anything,” Garratt said.

“Enough,” Ramerez said. “What need to worry about is what the hell made that sound!”

**“Help!”**

A deep growl resounded around the room, and they froze. A set of black claws curled around the corner and scratched the walls. Another growl came and they stared as a young teenager turned baring a set of sharp fangs at them. His gold eyes were thin reptilian slits, wild somewhat shaggy black and red hair stuck up in every known and unknown direction, and he wore only a pair to torn pants, showing the black and red scales dappling his arms, contrasting against his pale skin. The scales crawled up his limbs just under his jawline and onto his cheeks, becoming more prevalent on his collarbones becoming condensed on his back and shoulders, outlining the muscles on his abdomen, some dappling his calves as well, and a long tail gave a resounding crack when it snapped violently to the next direction.

Upon seeing him the hatchling scrambled to its feet but was picked up by the copilot who ran out. **“THEY HAVE GREY!!”**

Screaming, they ran out the other door. “What about Annalise?!”

A high pitch scream was their answer as the raptors found her. “We should head for the coast!” Garratt exclaimed.

“How do you know that?”

“More prey in the interior?” he offered, sounding unsure of his own answer.

“Ah, well then, after you,” Ramerez said. “I’d like to leave before the raptors get us too.”

As they ran into the jungle, they failed to notice the group of raptors watching. **“We hunt the rest later, for now, we eat, we cannot track and fight without energy. Those weaklings won’t get far, humans tire easily,”** Titania said. **“Fang, Talon, follow them. If you see an opportunity to get Grey back without harming him take it.”** The two raptors nodded, taking off after the thieves.

Going to another room, Onyx froze as he saw an injured woman now dead, being a meal to his pack. He may be a raptor first, but he was still half human; cannibalism was looked down on in both groups.

**“I’m not sure that’ll feed us all, should we go hunt something else till we’re ready to go after the intruders again?”**

The alpha female looked up from the kill at him. **“Yes, this shall suffice the hatchlings while we hunt food and get Grey back,”** she said. **“Typhoon, Seaspray, Razorback you three will stay and watch the rest.”**

The three raptors nodded and settled down as the pack left for the hunt.

Nightmare ran ahead, crawling up a tree he saw a lone…he wasn’t sure what it was, it was a big mammal with a lot of fur and one big horn on its nose like a triceratops. They were always difficult to handle, but not impossible. Seems the rest of the pack thought the same thing, because they were getting in position. Smiling he leapt down as they lunged from all directions.

-.-

** 12:45 **

“There’s the crash,” M’gann said stopping the bioship. Landing they walked out and searched the wreckage.

“Pilot’s dead!” Robin called.

“There’s blood, but it’s dried,” Superboy said. “And there’d be a remaining limb or two if the predators already got them.”

“I got something!” KF called running over. “There’s tracks, heading that way.”

“Towards the center of the island?” Wonder Woman frowned. “The coast is less dangerous, more of the larger predators hide in the island interiors. As long as they stay on the beach they’d be able to see any of the amphibious ones coming towards them.”

“True, but the old research compound is that way, I bet they went towards it to try and get a signal out,” Robin stated before going pale. “But…”

“But what?” Wally inquired.

“Scans say all the major predators in in the island center; they think the compound is in the middle of raptor territory. That’s where it was last time.”

“Great, we’re heading for the very thing we wanted to avoid running into,” Artemis grumbled.

“What’s that?” Superboy asked.

“Is this a super hearing thing?” Kid asked.

“Not just super hearing,” Wonder Woman said pointing to a puddle, and they could see it ripple, rhythmically, like…impact tremors. The heroine pulled out her rope, and they all began to look around, trying to figure out where the source of the tremors was.

A loud roar broke the silence and the trees moved to reveal a large, blue and red, Spinosaurus with burning red eyes looking at them.

“Maybe it’s friendly?” Miss M said.

The dinosaur roared loudly before it began charging at them. “NOT FRIENDLY! DEFINATATELY NOT FRIENDLY!” Wally shouted.

“You kids find the ambassador! I’ll handle him!” Wonder Woman said twirling her lasso and wrapping it around the dinosaur’s massive jaws, pulling it towards her.

Its red eyes locked onto her and narrowed, burning in rage. Two more loud growls echoed and Wonder Woman grit her teeth as a burnt-orange and blue carnivore that looked similar to the Spinosaurus, but that was a tad shorter standing alongside a gold-grey one approximately the same size.

Yanking on her lasso, she pulled the grey one down to the ground, causing it to knock out to the two others as it fell. Flying up, she looked around and spotted open plains where large herds of herbivores were feeding nearby. If she lured these beasts there then they’d turn their attention away from the children.

Landing, she gave a shrill whistle and she heard loud roars echo behind her as she sprinted towards the fields.

Running through the trees, they could hear the no doubt intense battle between Wonder Woman and the Spinosaurus. _“Guys! Turn right! The plains are up ahead!”_ Miss Martian said spotting the fields from where she flew above the trees.

Following her advice they turned and ran out onto the plains, starling several eating at the edge of the field. _“Great send us away from one that would eat us to a bunch that will crush us! Great plan!”_ Superboy remarked as they dodged the stampeding creatures.

 _“Hop on one,”_ Robin grinned as he rode past on a triceratops.

Fallowing his lead, Aqualad jumped, landing on the back of an ankylosaur as Suberboy leapt onto a mammoth. Robin rode past, taking a picture of them as he did. Pulling out an arrow, Artemis used it as a grapple to pull herself onto some dinosaur that ran on two legs and had some weird crest on its head. Kid Flash and Miss Martian were the only ones who didn’t need to hop on a dinosaur because he could outrun all of them and she could fly above them.

A roar sounded as three massive, spined carnivores burst from the trees as Wonder Woman sprinted ahead of them before she took off into the air. The three beasts released bone-shaking roars before charging after them. The spinosaur ran through the running herd before picking off an unfortunate juvenile diplodocus. The orange one charged after longer, before biting down on some unfortunate mammal, and the last one grabbed some small herbivore.

 _“They’re not focused on us anymore!”_ KF cheered as the rest hopped off their prehistoric creatures.

_“Good, you kids will want to hop off soon, the compound is in the forest.”_

_“Do you want me to call the bioship?”_

_“No, it would draw too much attention from predators on the ground. The last thing we need is to gain the attention of the velociraptors,”_ Wonder Woman said. _“We head for the compound on foot. If we’re lucky we’ll find the ambassador on the way without running into anymore dinosaurs.”_

_“And if we aren’t?”_

_“We run into the raptors first.”_


	4. Asset X

Chapter 3

**A/N: I do not own the Jurassic Park series or Young Justice. Onyx is my OC.**

**/comm/**

**T _elepathy_**

**“Raptor speak”**

** Isla Sorna: July 13, 13:21 **

Onyx ripped a large chunk of meat off, swallowing the sliver whole. Licking his lips, he sniffed the air, he could smell it, fear. The fear given off by prey when it’s panicked. Testing the air again, he caught a familiar scent, the spinosaurs, the pack was out hunting.

 **“We should go, we don’t need the spines catching our trespassers and Grey,”** the alpha male, Griphook said. He was a large, spiny green raptor with a white stripe on his back and grey tiger stripes getting darker down at his legs. The rest of the pack gave their chirps of agreement.

**“I got their scent! This way!”**

**“YOU HEARD WHIPLASH! LET’S GO!”**

With high pitch roars the pack followed the scent of blood.

-.-

“What was that?” M’gann asked as she flew down to the rest of the team, coming out of camouflage mode.

Robin sighed. “Velociraptor. The whole pack by the sounds of it. And if I’m remembering the correct call from the InGen recordings they sound pissed.”

“You don’t think…?” Superboy began.

“That the ambassador and the crew stumbled into their nest, yeah,” Kid said.

“Miss Martian, go up and see if you can spot them,” Aqualad ordered.

“Or just pinpoint the sound of terrified screams,” Wally added.

Nodding the Martian girl flew up and looked around, putting her hands on her head she stretched her telepathic range trying to detect the presence of the crew, sensing their minds she looked towards a small field of tall grass. _“I got them, tall grass field about a half-mile east!”_

_“Let’s go!”_

Running towards the field they grew worried as the cries of the raptors got louder.

-.-

“They’re getting closer!” the surviving stewardess exclaimed.

“Through the grass!” Ramerez exclaimed.

“No!” Garratt exclaimed but they were already running through it. Taking a breath, he split off running along the edge of the trees rather than the place they couldn’t see their attackers coming, as was proven by the shadows he saw disappearing into the grass after his comrades. One slowed to a stop and looked his direction. He gulped, it was the humanoid one, it looked back between him and the rest of the pack before charging at him.

In the field the three heard the shifting in the grass. “Where’s Garratt?” the ambassador asked.

A loud scream echoed on the edge of the field and they saw their group member running towards them, a dark shadow in pursuit, blood was running down his arm where a bite mark was visible, blood stained his shirt as a series of gashes tore through his clothing and side, and there was a set of deep slashes on his face.

 **“DIE!”** Titania leapt out of the grass to tackle the copilot, when a golden lasso wrapped around her torso and yanked her to the side. The alpha female rolled on the ground, getting to her feet she glared at the human who dared defy her.

Wonder Woman held the lasso tight against the thrashing velociraptor, out of the corner of her eyes she could see other raptors moving around her and the survivors.

The red and grey female at the end of the lasso lunged towards the heroine, and several others made their move as well, grabbing the copilot while she was distracted and dragging him away.

Leaping out of the way, Wonder Woman began yanking on the rope, when something slammed into her from behind, causing her to drop her lasso as sharp claws buried into her arm and teeth sank into her shoulder.

“Wonder Woman!” one of the kids called as they raced out into the field, seeing several raptors grabbing the survivors and the heroine holding off a large female raptor along with another one clinging to her back.

“Help the survivors! I can handle them!” she growled grabbing the lasso around the female’s torso and tossing her away.

The team nodded and went to handle the rest of the raptors as Wonder Woman grabbed the one whose claws wear tearing away at her torso. Hurling it over her shoulder the black and red mess landed in front of her with a yelp.

It got to its feet making the heroine freeze as a pair of golden eyes glowing against black and red scales and pale _human_ skin.

The boy before her couldn’t have been older than Wally, but he was still baring sharp fangs stained with her blood. He lunged at her, slashing at her with his claws. Ducking under, she grabbed the end of her rope, and stood up; grabbing his arms and using the rope to tie his arms. Of course, that didn’t stop the child from fighting. Lifting his legs, the shorter claws on his feet tore at her boots and he attempted to escape her grip, using his tail to keep balance.

Using her leg, she swiped the tail out from under him, and pushing him off of her, before running over and pinning him down with her super-strength, being careful not to harm him. Now she that she could get a good look at she could see he was young, just around Robin’s age. Too young to be fighting as viciously as he was.

He was still struggling, attempting to use his teeth to bite her now that he couldn’t use his claws since she had his hands pinned and his legs couldn’t reach her since she was sitting on him.

“Easy little one, I’m not going to hurt you,” she said gently and his pupils narrowed into thin slits as he bared his fangs at her. Seems like he wasn’t believing her.

Unfortunately, before she could try to reassure him, the female had untangled herself the lasso and tackled Wonder Woman to the ground. Kicking her legs up, she knocked the raptor off of her and rolled to her feet, watching the large grey and red raptor and the hybrid boy circling her giving low hisses.

“Miss M! Call the Bioship!” Robin called flipping over a raptor, and tasering it just before it could bite down on the pilot’s neck, allowing the man to scramble back and join the others as the team fought the carnivores off.

“Get in!” M’gann said flying over as the ship flew down.

The survivors raced over to the ship when several other raptors broke off from the group, blocking their path.

“They’ve surrounded us!” Kid Flash called punching one as it was about to bite the copilot.

“Did any of you guys grab anything?” Robin called, tossing his last bola, trying up another raptor as it leapt at the group.

The copilot looked down for a moment, his hand in his pocket.

“What did you take?!” Superboy snapped holding a raptor’s jaws and wincing as the sharp claws tore through his clothing. Then he heard it, chirps; high pitched, distressed chirps.

“Just give it up already before they kill us all!” the ambassador snapped, shaking the man as Wonder Woman landed next to them, numerous scratches and bites bleeding slowly.

“Alright!”

The man stepped forwards reaching into his pocket, and he pulled out a baby raptor. The grey and red one the heroine was fighting stepped forwards hissing as he set it down. The alpha looked at them for a moment before looking down to the hatchling.

 **“Are you alright?”** Titania questioned looking down to the small runt who shared her dappled grey coloring.

**“My leg hurts.”**

**“It will heal,”** she replied picking him up by his tail as her mate walked up and licked their hatchling.

 **“Back to the nest!”** Griphook ordered.

To the team’s amazement, the raptors began leaving as soon as the female held the baby by his tail in her jaws.

“Ah! It’s still there!” the ambassador squealed, hiding behind Superboy as he spotted the hybrid.

Wonder Woman took a step towards the boy, when he crouched and hissed, baring his fangs.

Nightmare had to make sure the humans were leaving before he’d join with the rest of the pack. Camo walked up next to him, ordering the trespassers to go back into their red egg and Whitetail snorted somewhere to his right.

 **“Leave!”** Nightmare snapped glaring at the dark-haired woman.

**“Nightmare! Camo! Whitetail! Return to the nest!”**

The three looked at each other, then back at the humans before they sprinted off into the forest, ignoring the protesting creatures behind them.

The team stared after the boy as he sprinted off into the forest, Wally was about to chase after, when Aqualad grabbed his shoulder. “We need to get them to a hospital.”

Reluctantly standing down, he nodded. “The closest will be in Costa Rica,” Diana replied still looking after where the boy vanished.

-.-

** Mt. Justice: 16:12 **

“The mission was a success,” Aqualad said as they walked into the main room. “The Ambassador, his assistant, the copilot, and the stewardess are currently recovering at the hospital.”

“And the pilot and other flight attendant?”

“The pilot died in the crashed and we’ve been informed that the other stewardess was killed by the raptors when we arrived,” he informed.

“I see, where there any complications?”

“Other than nearly being eaten by a pack spinosaurus, crushed by a stampede, and getting murdered by raptors the mission went smoothly,” Robin listed.

“Uh am I the only one who remembers that kid?” Wally questioned.

“What?” Batman asked. “No one should be on that island.”

“They aren’t lying,” Wonder Woman said walking in, “there was a boy around Robin’s age.”

“I got a photo!” Robin said typing on the monitor and pulling up a snapshot he managed to snap, showing the hybrid boy and the two raptors next to him.

Batman frowned, the person in the picture was indeed a teenager. “Hit the showers and go home,” he ordered. Looking at his protégé and adopted son they shared a look, knowing they’d meet up back at the Batcave.

“What are you going to do?” Diana questioned.

“I’m going to try and find out who he is, there’s bound to be a record somewhere,” he replied.

“We can’t just leave him there!”

“And we won’t, but I need to pull up some records to see if we can get a name or relatives,” he replied.

“And how long do you think that will take?” she said raising an eyebrow and placing her hands on her hips.

When she didn’t get an answer, the heroine threw her arms up in the air. “Let me know, because while you’re doing that I’m going to be going back as often as I can to try and build trust!”

“Just be careful, those islands are dangerous,” Batman nodded walking to the Zeta-Tubes and heading for the Batcave.

Arriving at his home, Batman went straight over to the computer and began typing, pulling up the image Robin got and images of missing children. Activating a program that identified facial features he aged them to the approximated age and ran through to try to identify who he was.

“Recognized: Robin—B01.”

“You got anything?” Dick asked as Bruce removed his cowl.

“Nothing yet,” he replied looking at his son. He bore a few scrapes and bruises, probably from running away from a twenty-foot-tall monster. “How are you holding up?”

“Huh?”

“Your injuries?” Bruce clarified.

Robin shrugged. “It’s not the first time I’ve gotten hurt.”

“But it is the first time you went up against dinosaurs,” he reminded a slight smile tugging his lips. “Go get some rest, we can talk about this more tomorrow.”

Nodding he turned to head upstairs. “Night.”

“Night.”

“It is getting late not just for Master Dick,” Alfred said stepping out. “I’m sure whatever case this is it can wait for tomorrow, after the charity fundraiser you are hosting.”

“In a bit,” Bruce replied as he started hacking into InGen.

“Just what is so important that you’re putting off sleep, sir?” the butler asked raising an eyebrow. Bruce pressed a button and the image appeared on one of the monitors. “I see…and just where is this boy?”

“Isla Sorna.”

The butler’s eyes widened a fraction of an inch before he composed himself. “How did he get there? And how has he been surviving?”

“That’s what I’m trying to find out.”

“Do you believe his is a meta or the result of experimentation?” Alfred asked looking over the boy, he could see the armor-like red and black scales covering his back, going over his shoulders and around his sides outlining his muscles; the sharp claws, a powerful tail, and those unnatural molten-gold eyes.

“That’s what I’m trying to figure out,” Bruce said finally getting into their database, which had been reinforced since LexCorp had bought them out. Going deeper into Dr. Henry Wu’s personal files he found, looking through one he found a reference to something called _Asset X._ Bruce was willing to bet money that this _Asset X_ was the boy he was looking at in the picture.

And if his growing hunch was right, Dr. Wu was going to be paying an extended trip to the hospital after a surprise visit from the Batman. Human experimentation was horrible, but doing it to a child…it was unforgiveable in his eyes.

-.-

Lex Luthor looked up from his paperwork as Mercy walked in holding a set of files. “Dr. Wu’s personal files, sir.”

“Thank you, Mercy,” he said taking the files. Most of it was data on dinosaurs and potential hybrids that could be used for weaponization, but he could sort out those little details later. Going through he stopped on the file he had been looking for, the very reason he’d hired Dr. Wu in the first place. “Asset X Project.”

Opening it, he looked at a startling picture, it was a boy, no older than ten, with wild black and red hair that hid the beginning of matching scales that covered everything but his abdomen and chest, as well as appearing loosely on his arms and legs, his eyes were cat-like in appearance and an inhuman bright gold color, and a long tail curled around his ankles.

**_ Asset X: A1 _ **

**_Age_ ** _: 08_

**_Species_ ** _: Human-Velociraptor hybrid_

**_Human Ethnicity_ ** _: European-American_

**_Mother:_ ** _W.W._

**_Father:_ ** _D.S._

**_Eyes_ ** _: Reptilian slit pupils, gold in color with trace flecks of blue and green, third eyelid for combat and infrared vision, tapetum lucidum for night vision is present (reflects light in gold coloring)_

**_Hair_ ** _: Black with red highlights/lowlights, body hair only develops on head and brows, responds to emotions in similar fashion of animals (i.e. bristling when angry/startled), doesn’t grow farther than length shown_

**_Epidermis_ ** _: Clear distinctive lines between scales and skin in most portions with fading on extremities and face. Scales are black with scarlet stripes; condensed on back, neck, shoulders, upper-arms collarbone, sides of torso; extend down from cheeks to legs; fade to light dappling from elbow to forearm and knee to shins; portions extend into abdomen outlining muscular features_

**_Jaw_ ** _: Front jaw all sharp canine-like teeth, molars in back, front teeth dig in and tear flesh, back teeth hold and crush; can exert a bite force of 1,000 lbs (greater force may be expected further in development with possible modification)_

**_Build_ ** _: 4’8’’, expected to grow to a height of 6’4’’ (tail is expected to match in order to maintain balance and be used for combat purposes); claws grow in place of nails, extremely sharp; vocal cords adapted, allowing communication between himself and raptors and humans; long tail, extremely strong, can be used for attacks, defense, and allows him to keep balance in difficult situations_

**_Abilities/Modifications_ ** _: Super-strength (more modification will be done later to see if it can be improved), super-speed (more modification may be done to improve), scales modified to be bulletproof and fireproof combined with already present invulnerability from maternal donor, detailed night vision, infrared vision, extreme intelligence, can smell prey up to 5 miles away, extremely sensitive hearing, claws modified to cut through titanium (will be improved through modification). Other powers—possible (modification and genetic manipulation will be further used to see)_

**_Other Notes:_ ** _Subject A1 has displayed heightened intelligence allowing him to quickly adapt to new situations and devise plans for attack and/or escape. Remains hostile towards combative trainers and other researchers besides myself, Dr. Rosenberg, and D.S. A1 will escape given the opportunity and return to the raptor pack (often leading capture teams to death). Has mauled several of the guards ordered to transport to testing. Restraints and security measures have been doubled._

_ A1 is recommended for Stage 2.  _

“Interesting, seems like my investments into Dr. Wu’s work were successful after all,” Luthor smiled. Skimming the remaining pages, his smile grew wider. These results were even better than what he’d been expecting. “Mercy, I’d like to see Dr. Wu in my office about finally bringing the Asset X Project into the Light.”


	5. Uninvited Guest

**A/N: I just own this story, I don’t own YJ or the JPS.**

**/comm/**

**_Telepathy_ **

**_“_ Raptor”**

** Isla Sorna: July 15, 9:45 **

Nightmare purred lightly as he felt the sun warming his scales, some air moved by his cheek, making some of his hair to tickle his nose. Opening his eyes he sat up to see Titania looking down at him.

 **“Morning,”** he said wagging his tail.

 **“Get up, we’re going hunting,”** she said and he pouted.

With a sigh, the fourteen-year-old got up with a yawn. Stretching, he felt his tail curl over his head, making him smile and bat playfully at the appendage.

**“Nightmare!”**

Freezing, Onyx looked to see his mother glaring at him, immediately making him drop his tail as a red flush emerged from around his scales.

He got to his feet and trotted over to the rest of the pack as they gathered for the hunting trip.

 **“Everyone ready?”** Titania questioned getting chitters and chirps in reply. **“Let’s go, we’re heading for the plains today, the prey will have returned by now after the spines’ scare.”**

Onyx grinned, sprinting through the forest as they made their way towards the open fields most of the herbivores fed in. Coming to the edge, they crouched downwind looking out towards the heard, figuring out which one was going to be unfortunate enough to be eaten.

**“There’s an injured on the edge of the curved horned herd.”**

Nightmare looked in the direction his pack-mate mentioned. There was a herd of Nasutoceratops; the one they were looking at was walking with a limp, its head hanging lower than the rest and its scales were less colorful. It was weaker than the rest and it wouldn’t be able to get away. The perfect prey.

The trick would just be making sure they weren’t trampled or skewered.

 **“It’s close to the forest, we could ambush it from the back,”** Onyx suggested.

Titania gazed out calculatingly. **“Nightmare, you and five of the others go around, start an attack. Separate it and herd it towards us. Talon, you take half the pack and get the sick crested-head.”**

Nodding, Nightmare motioned to Camo and several others before they quickly darted through the brush. Coming around the back they crouched down.

 **“Spread out and flank it,”** Nightmare ordered and the others nodded. Doing as the Beta directed they spread out and watched the rest of the pack get into position across the field. 

Baring his teeth, the hybrid growled as he and others began slowly emerging from the brush. One of the horned creatures released a warning call, and they all started running away, their target falling near the back.

With a screech, Nightmare and the others lunged after the fleeing animals. Sprinting ahead, he and Camo began to run between the large beasts, separating the weaker member. It would tire soon, and then it would be easier to herd towards the pack.

His claws effortlessly tore through the back leg as he passed by, dragging them up the side as Camo ran past, attempting to bite the face. The food gave a pained cry as is split off from the other stampeding herbivores.

The pair pulled away as the other members of the party came it at from the other side forcing it to go the direction they wanted it to go. The Nasutoceratops ran through the brush and right into the trap. Titania and several other raptors hopped in front of it, forcing it to stop. It seemed to try and run to either direction, but other raptors appeared there was well as the herders caught up.

This is where things got dangerous.

The Nasutoceratops gave several grunts, pawing the ground angrily before it charged swinging its horns. Several raptors dodged out of the way as others rushed it, slashing, biting, and clawing at its exposed sides. Swinging its massive head around, Nightmare winced as he watched a few of his packmates get smacked aside by its tail. Thankfully they got up a split second later, irritated and angry, but alive.

Nightmare hissed before he charged in to play his part. He was the strongest in the pack, meaning he distracted the prey as the pack attacked. Grabbing its horns, he dug his heels into the ground and held the food’s head in place as his pack began killing it.

The Nasutoceratops began screeching and attempting to thrash its head wildly. Baring his teeth with a loud growl, he yanked its head down towards the ground sideways, forcing the rest of the creature to follow in order to avoid snapping its neck. This exposed its belly, allowing them to hit the weakest point and slice it open. Releasing it, Onyx backed away before its horns could hit his arms as it swung its massive head up with a cry before it released its last agonized breath.

The pack began eagerly digging in, and Nightmare and several others began working the tail off to take back to the hatchlings and their babysitters. Finally clawing it off, Onyx hefted the severed limb over his shoulder before nodding to his mother and beginning the trek back to the nest.

As he made his way back, he sniffed the air before growling. What was a human doing back on the island?

“That was quite a hunt.”

Whirling around and dropping the tail, Nightmare bared his teeth and snarled at the woman from a few days ago. Now having a real chance to look at her, he could see she was dressed in some sort of colorful one-piece with red and white boots, but what caught his attention was the metal cuffs on her wrists and circle on her head. Did she used to be held captive too?

He shook his head, that didn’t matter, she was one of the ones who was helping the humans that took Grey. She was a trespasser and an enemy.

The human female smiled taking a step closer, making him growl and his hair fluffed up. “Alright, I’ll back away,” she said taking a couple steps back, holding her hands up. She didn’t reach for the rope she used on him and the alpha during their fight.

He let his hair fall, but he kept his eyes on her. He wasn’t going to lead her back to the nest.

“You did very good in your hunt there young one,” she continued slowly sitting down on a log across from him. “That was a brilliant plan to separate your target from the rest of the group to lead them into a trap, as well as your impressive feat of strength. My sisters would have approved.”

Nightmare backed away, using his tail to pick the food up. Her posture was relaxed, indicating she had no intention of attack, but that didn’t mean he was going to stay and find out the contrary.

“Don’t go,” she said getting up. “I’m not going to hurt you sweetie.”

Nightmare bolted.

-.-

** July 17, 15:37 **

Diana flew above the island looking down, hoping to spot the velociraptor pack, or at least the young teenager running with them. He wasn’t at the compound with the raptors babysitting that had almost spotted her, meaning he was somewhere else on the island.

Ok, so she had to think, the nest just had a fresh kill nearby, meaning the pack had gone hunting not too long ago. The only thing that they would leave the safety of their hold would be for water or to defend their territory. And considering she hadn’t heard any roaring or fighting it was safe to assume they were going towards water.

Looking down below her, she could see several bodies of water on the island. There was the plains’ lake, surrounded by herbivores, and there were a few rivers. The closest river to the nest was by the aviary, so in all odds the pack had to be there.

Flying over, she landed quietly in a tree and looked around, listening: there were calls from numerous birds, screeches that had to come from whatever was in that birdcage, there was hissing that sounded like it belonged to a crocodile, and…there, the quiet calls of raptors. Hopping between the branches, she moved along the river, to spot the pack a few hundred yards in front of her.

Something wasn’t right.

In her previous visits observing the pack and trying to earn the boy’s trust, the raptors were normally quite vocal and seemed to be rarely ever on edge; this was different, they were stiff, nervously observing their surroundings before taking a drink, and even then, a max of eight would be drinking from the water as the rest of this large pack kept watch.

She could see the boy in a tree nearby, on a branch high above the water. His tail dangled down, the tip flicking every now and then as he watched the surface with…his eyes were different. In Diana’s previous observations she noticed his eyes were human-like, white sclera surrounding a round iris where his raptor traits probably gave it the gold coloring and the slit pupils, but now they were solid gold, almost glowing.

The boy pulled her out of her confused thoughts as he craned his neck, spotting something she couldn’t in the water. He gave a sort grunt, causing a lot of the raptors’ heads to snap towards the water, and the several that were drinking lifted their heads, going quiet.

Diana could probably cut the tension hanging in the suddenly silent air with her sword. Looking towards the boy, she could see he had moved into a crouch on his branch, hair fluffed up and tail still as he watched the water’s surface.

Then he screamed loud enough for her to cover her ears.

All at once the pack of raptors bolted back from the river’s edge, and Diana watched as something big slowly broke the surface. It looked like a crocodile on venom, the head alone was big enough she bet it probably ate things larger than raptors regularly. The large beast’s eyes looked at the pack, before the head dove back under the water with barely a ripple.

The boy watched the water for a while longer, before he suddenly jumped out of the tree and away from the river with a quick bark and the rest of the pack retreated further, watching warily.

Looking away from the raptors, Diana paled as she saw what they had to be looking at, even through the dark water, she could see the shadow of something large, something much bigger than the steroid-gator, moving through the water.

Dozens of amphibious creatures began emerging from the river frantically as the shadow drew close, and she could only watch as a pair of smaller animals that looked like a blue alligator with a fish-like tale started getting out as the thing leapt from the water, its massive jaws closing down on one.

Diana had seen on of these before on a trip with Bruce, Clark, and Dick to Jurassic World; a Mosasaurus. This one was significantly smaller than the one in the park had been, but even then, that left a large monster.

With its thrashing prey in its jaws, the massive creature began turning around from where it appeared to have beached itself, before it slipped down into the depths.

By the time she turned away to watch the raptors again, they were gone.

-.-

** July 23, 12:04 **

Nightmare sprawled out basking in the sunlight. Lying around after a hunt had always been one of his favorite times of day. However, he did have to be careful to avoid showing his pale, non-scaled skin for too long because when he was out too long it turned red and hurt and sometimes began shedding. First time he had done it, Titania had nearly choked on her own tail because she was so confused as to why he was suddenly shedding when he never had done so before. Now whenever a pack member noticed he was getting even slightly pink, they dragged him by his tail into the shade because of said incident.

Hearing movement, Nightmare opened his eyes tiredly and reluctantly lifted his head. Whoever was stupid enough to wake him was going to pay. Not immediately spotting anyone, he sat up with a yawn and looked around. Most of his pack was basking in similar sunlight spots as he was that were randomly scattered around the forest, others were napping in groups in the shade closer to the nest, and he could hear some playing with the hatchlings inside.

So what the hell woke him?

“I didn’t mean to wake you.”

Turning his head, Nightmare was suddenly wide awake. The weird human was back. He hadn’t seen her since she interrupted his hunt a few days ago and scared away his prey. He sprung to his feet and prepared to lash out with his claws.

“Whoa, easy,” she said quietly holding out her hands and kneeling down in a spot that was way too close for his tastes, “I promise, I won’t hurt you. I just want to help you.”

Baring his teeth, the teen hissed at her, and she backed away. She didn’t want him to call the rest of the pack, she needed to earn his trust.

A shriek made her head snap over to see the alpha raptor growling at her and others getting up.

“I’ll be back!” she said before…she flew away?

**“Nightmare?! Are you ok?!”**

**“I’m fine,”** Onyx replied nuzzling her muzzle before she licked his cheek.

**“Good, call me if that human shows up again, don’t just sit there like a newborn hatchling.”**

**“Yes Alpha.”**

-.-

** July 26, 21:55 **

Wonder Woman landed on a branch and watched the compound, wiping some of her wet hair out of her face as the rain poured around her. Through the broken windows she could see the pack of raptors sleeping inside, near the center, curled in a ball was the boy. Seems she got here too late after all, she was hoping he’d still be awake when she arrived.

It would be too risky to try to get close with the rest of the pack practically smothering him with how tightly clustered they were. And with her soaking wet, the chances of her accidently waking another raptor wouldn’t even let the thought of trying cross her mind.

So far her efforts in gaining the boy’s trust had been met with mixed results. He’d was wary and refused to let her get close; if she did, then he would lash out and leave a scratch Bruce would need to stitch up later. However, recently he had stopped trying to attack her, so she took that as a good sign.

The heroine pressed her lips together in thought as an idea came to her.

Perhaps if she brought him something on her next visit, he might be curious enough to let her get close. This way she could truly show him that he wasn’t going to be hurt.

-.-

** July 28, 10:37 **

Nightmare lifted his head as the scent of the strange flying woman came back. Looking around he spotted her sitting on a branch of a nearby tree. “You certainly like to sunbathe. Can’t say I blame you,” she smiled slowly floating down, “I did it all the time at my home whenever I had free time. The beach was always my favorite place. With the sand and the sound of the waves. Tell me, what sounds do you prefer? Waves or jungle? Maybe you like the sound of rain.”

This caused the teen to tilt his head with a small rumble, what in the world was she talking about?

The woman chuckled before she pulled a small baggie out of a satchel on her hip. “I thought I’d bring you something, so I thought you’d like jerky,” she said gently pulling a piece of…it looked like meat that had dried after it had spent many days in the sun. Only, this meat had a strange smell, most old meat smelled bad and made predators sick. This didn’t smell like that. She took a bite of the one she held out, before pulling out another piece. “Do you want a bite? I have plenty to share.”

The teen slowly moved into a crouch, silently debating on getting closer.

“How about if I do this?” the woman said setting the piece of dried meat down and slowly backing away, taking bites of her own.

Onyx slowly crept forwards gently taking the piece between his claws. Sticking his tongue out, the teen licked it cautiously before pulling his head away in surprise. It was…God what was it? It didn’t taste like normal meat, and it made his mouth burn.

Furrowing his eyebrows, he bit down on one end and began pulling, the meat was much more stringy than good meat and thus harder to pull apart. Shaking his head from side-to-side he eventually pulled a piece off before swallowing it.

This proved to be a poor decision on his part, because he began coughing at the fire entering his mouth.

“Are you ok?” the woman asked coming up to him as he hacked.

Weakly hissing he scrambled back as he continued coughing. Getting far enough away, Nightmare shoved the rest into his mouth, attempting to chew the meat despite the heat and managing to swallow it. Which successfully started another coughing fit as the woman wore a look between bemusement and concern.

She gave a sigh and her shoulders drooped. “Maybe I shouldn’t have taken Green Arrow’s jerky, he always has the spicy stuff,” she muttered to herself before smiling at him again, ignoring the somewhat irritated bark he gave. “Tell you what, next time I’ll bring you something less spicy! Maybe chocolate! Ice cream won’t survive the journey, but chocolate will! Trust me, you will love chocolate!”

The boy’s hair fluffed up, not sure what to make of her tone, it was something he’d never heard a human use. Well…no human other than his old Caretaker, she used to sound like that too when talking about something she would consider a good idea and then it would later turn out to either be right or go horribly wrong.

Though, the result this time was his own fault; he did choose to accept the food and paid the price. While he wasn’t sure he wanted to accept offerings again, she did mention chocolate.

“That’s what I’ll bring you! I shall see you next time young hunter,” the woman waved before flying off into the sky.

Nightmare sighed tiredly, curling back up in his sunny spot, maybe if he was lucky she wouldn’t be back for a while yet.


	6. The Boy of the Island

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> /comm/
> 
> Italics is telepathy
> 
> Bold is raptor

/Team Report to mission room/ Batman called.

“Wonder what we’re being sent on now,” Wally said. “Hopefully not another rescue mission.”

“Dude, that so called ‘rescue mission’ was a normal mission in itself. Nothing like finding an ambassador running away from velociraptors while running away from a spinosaurus,” Robin reminded.

“True,” he nodded.

The team suited up and went out to the mission room where Batman stood waiting. “Some time ago you had a mission, where you found a young man of approximately thirteen to fifteen years of age,” Batman said showing the photo Robin took of the mystery metahuman. “You mission is to retrieve him.”

“Wait, you’re sending us back to that death trap after someone who can vanish into the jungle like Boy Wonder here and who runs with the velociraptors!” Kid Flash said.

“And I’ve thought of that,” Batman said. “Robin has knockout gas, when you find the pack or just him use it.”

“Oh.”

“Justice League scanners have managed to define the areas the large predators tend to roam,” the Dark Knight continued as map of the island with several colored regions. “Now, the red is what you want to focus on, this is the velociraptor’s range. However, many predators roam this island ranging in size of the Tyrannosaurus Rex and Spinosaurus to ankle height. There are also non-dinosaur predators, including Entelodon and Smilodon. And whatever you do, do not go in the water, the number of predators triples as amphibious carnivores, the aquatic predators, and Spinosaur and related species hunt in these areas.”

“But the raptor range; it’s all over the island,” Superboy said.

“Yes, the velociraptors have the largest territory range, running through every territory besides the aviary. However, you want to focus on these areas.” The majority of the highlights disappeared and only several remained. “The raptors are most commonly spotted in these locations, this is where you’ll most likely find your target. Get going.”

“We’re on our way,” Aqualad said.

-.-

** Isla Sorna **

Onyx yawned as he woke up, he could see the sunlight streaming through the broken windows of the old InGen complex. Looking around he saw the rest of the pack was gone, probably hunting, feeling squirming next to his side he looked and saw the hatchlings cuddled up against his side and tail as the extremity was curled around them.

 **“Nightmare!”** Grey squeaked seeing his elder brother awake. He was the only hatchling of Titania’s litter to survive the seasonal storms and scavengers, despite the babysitters always on watch, and since the only other hatchlings were Wisp’s he stayed with them; but at least he always had his big brother to keep him company.

 **“Hey Grey, how ya feeling?”** he asked nudging the runt of the litter with his nose.

The grey raptor squeaked indignantly as he stumbled, before headbutting the hybrid’s cheek in retaliation. **“I’m fine, still hurts a little. Hey! Can we play hide and seek?!”**

**“I’d like to eat first, speaking of which, where’s everyone else?”**

**“Hunting,”** an albino hatchling named Star chirped. **“Auntie Titania left you in charge of us!”**

Onyx rolled his eyes, that’s what his mother always did when he slept late, she left him in charge of the nest and the little rascals.

**“So can we play?”**

**“Yeah let’s play!”**

**“Hide and seek!”**

**“Tag!”**

**“Hide and seek tag!”**

**“Predator and prey!”**

He chuckled lightly as he watched the young raptors tackle each other as they fought over what game to play. Due to his small stature compared to the other hatchlings and his still healing leg he couldn’t participate in the normal playfighting, so Grey opted to stay out and chose to curl in the warm space between his big brother’s odd claws and strange chest letting the strong heartbeat lull him back to sleep.

Sniffing the air Nightmare caught the scent of the pack about three miles north. Wouldn’t be long before they brought back the food, moving into a sunny spot, he laid back down and rested his head on his arms, his tail flicking lazily, enjoying basking in the sunlight.

Realizing his source of warmth was gone, Grey hissed and snuck over to Nightmare, pouncing he nipped on his brother’s ear causing the elder to lift his head in shock. **“Grey…”**

**“Nightmare?”**

**“Here,”** he called seeing Camo walking in with a galimimus.

 **“We got this for you and the hatchlings,”** he said depositing the dead animal, ignoring the fact that the current babysitter had a hatchling nipping at his side.

 **“Breakfast!”** they all called running over, their playful fight all but forgotten.

 **“Thanks,”** Onyx nodded as his main hunting partner left and Grey darted over to the food. **“Hey guys, save some for me.”** Ripping the leg off, he plopped back down in his sunny spot and started eating.

Finishing his meal, he looked over to see that the little ones had fallen into little food comas. Laughing lightly, he gathered the small hatchlings and placed them in an old cabinet he retrofitted to be a self-sufficient nest, fit with a few old couch pillows he found, some old blankets, and he put the latest kill along with a tub of water. A safe place to hide while the adults were out, or if there was a raid on the nest. He’d let them sleep, maybe the pack would be back soon so their parents could groom them.

Settling back down in the sun, enjoying the warmth and silence as he closed his eyes and slipped into his own doze. One that was soon broken by the not-so-quiet sound of a chopper. Stretching, he went to a broken window covered in vines and peered out before freezing, his hearing was right, it was a helicopter, multiple helicopters. All with the logos of _InGen_ or another one he’s never heard of called _LexCorp._ Watching them, he bit his lip and felt his tail twitch as he saw the copters slow to a stop not far from the compound.

 **“Grey,”** he whispered nudging the sleeping hatchling.

 **“Nightmare?”** he asked with bleary eyes.

 **“Look, we’re doing hide and shriek.”** The little hatchling’s eyes widened knowing the difference between the two games. **“Stay quiet, let the others know. If they find you, you know what to do.”** He nodded watching as he closed the door.

Onyx ran out of the compound towards the north. **“HUMANS ON THE SOUTHSIDE OF THE ISLAND.”**

He could hear the enraged call of his mother from where he stood. **“ALL HUNTING PARTIES RETURN TO THE NEST!”**

-.-

“Our target is most likely going to be at the compound. If you see A1 use a maximum of three, these are filled with small doses a sedative used to bring down the large assets in Jurassic World; we don’t need him in a coma but sedated long enough to get him to our employer.”

“Why?”

“Because his metabolic system was designed to burn through it faster than normal and one would only make him dizzy, two: he’ll go down but it’ll take longer; three should knock him out almost instantly. We think he could survive a fourth dose, but more than that will kill him; our orders are to retrieve him _alive_.”

“What if we see the other raptors?”

“Hit them with one dart, they should be out long enough for us to catch A1, and remember, A1’s scales will block your darts, aim for the exposed skin located on the torso, forearms, and below the knee. However, there is a chance he might be immune, so if you hit him and he doesn’t go down, send a warning and switch to gas,” the squad leader stopped as they heard raptor calls. “They know we’re here! Move out!”

-.-

The Bioship flew over the island in camouflage mode. “Looks like we’re not the only ones here,” Artemis, now fully briefed on the situation, said pointing to a landed fleet of helicopters.

“InGen and LexCorp,” Robin informed, “neither of which should be here.”

“Isn’t this island owned by Bruce Wayne?” Wally asked, while his tone held a playful edge, his eyes seethed with anger at Luthor for so obviously trespassing.

“Yeah,” Robin said, “and I can guess only one thing valuable enough for Luthor to trespass so obviously.”

“The hybrid,” Aqualad said. “We have to work quickly. Miss Martian land in that clearing east of the compound.”

-.-

Onyx knelt in the thick foliage watching the InGen personnel, he didn’t know why, but he could feel his heart pounding in his chest and his breathing was shaky. It was a feeling he hadn’t felt in years…fear.

Running back towards the compound, he joined up with the rest of the pack. **“There’s at least twenty.”**

 **“Any idea what they’re here for?”** Titania asked and he shook his head. **“Spread out call if you spot them.”**

Nodding they ran off, Onyx went into the thick jungle and climbed up into a tree. Sniffing the air he frowned, he could smell multiple humans nearby. Crouching on a branch, he slid his third eyelid into place switching to thermal vision. He could see several humans with guns moving slowly through the brush about thirty yards ahead.

/I got him/ one guy whispered carefully aiming his rifle at his arm. /Up in a tree/

/Take the shot, the first shot will startle and disorient him, he should remain coherent enough to keep himself from getting injured, once he’s on the ground take the other shots. Remember, A1 is wanted _unharmed_ /

A shot rang out and Onyx jumped as something slammed against his scales, looking down he grabbed the object on the branch next to him, a tranquilizer dart, he hated those things. Looking towards the direction the shot came from he saw the form of a human he missed in his initial scope. Crawling around the tree he jumped to the ground, two more shots rang out and he grunted as two more darts came out and nearly implanted themselves in his leg.

“USE THE GAS!”

The teen didn’t have long to contemplate what that meant before three small cylinders were hurled by him. Impacting the ground, green gas began to hiss out. Coughing, he slid his third-eyelid into place and tried to reorient himself through the gaseous haze. More canisters landed in the area surrounding him releasing their contents into the air making it harder to breath.

Shaking off a sudden wave of dizziness, he ran, where he didn’t care, just as long as he got away. As he raced through the jungle the dizziness got worse, along with a growing feeling of exhaustion. Stumbling, he tripped over a root and rolled down the hill. Landing painfully at the bottom as he slammed into a tree. He was pretty sure something was broken as he began scrambling to his feet. Upon getting to his feet, another wave of dizziness washed over him, making his knees give out. Black was creeping at the edge of his vison, and his limbs felt heavy…he couldn’t run…he had…he had to get away from them, he couldn’t go back to a cage.

The last thing he saw was a flash of a familiar set of red and white boots entering his vision and hearing a familiar voice before darkness engulfed him.

-.-

The team ran towards the sound of the gunshots. Flying up M’gann saw several men with guns. _“Aqualad there’s four men, all armed, they seem to be chasing something.”_

 _“Or someone,”_ Superboy stated.

“He’s going northeast!” one guy called.

_“Yo! Kaldur, you want us to take down these guys?”_

Aqualad contemplated for a moment. _“Do it, quickly.”_

Nodding Robin and Kid Flash ran in, Wally hit two on the back of the head, and Robin dropped some knockout gas. All four were soon down for the count. _“Guys, look what I got,”_ Robin said holding a tranquilizer dart. _“This one has already hit a target, the needle’s bent. How much you wanna bet it’s our feral friend?”_

 _“I’ll take a look around!”_ Wally said tossing on his thermal goggles and running off.

 _“I’ll see if I can get anything from the air,”_ Miss M said flying up. Reaching out telepathically she could sense a lot more humans, animals, and…there! That one odd mind, one that no doubt belonged to their target. _“I’ve got him about five miles north.”_

 _“Good, Kid head that way, we’ll meet up with you there with the Bioship,”_ Aqualad ordered.

Running that way, Kid Flash tripped and rolled down the very hill that he rolled down the last time. Getting to the bottom he groaned, trees hurt. With a groan, he stumbled to his feet and froze as he saw the hybrid, lying nearby, no doubt unconscious; Wonder Woman was crouched over him, aiming a sword at the newcomer.

“Wallace?”

“Hi Diana.”


	7. The Feral Child

**A/N: I just own the story and my OC.**

**/comm/**

**“Raptor”**

**_Telepathy_ **

** Gulf of Mexico: August 1, 14:03 **

Diana sat on the berth M’gann had made in the Bioship, her fingers slowly carding through the hybrid-child’s tangled locks, her attention focused solely on him as the teens around her chattered. He still had yet to wake since she found him, but it wasn’t a surprise, according to Robin’s scans the teenager had been drugged, heavily.

Of course, that didn’t mean she couldn’t pray he’d wake up sooner. She could still see the look that had been in his eyes when she had finally located him all alone on the jungle floor, far from the safety of his pack. He had been absolutely terrified but was too weak to call to his pack for help. Once he woke up, Diana could reassure him that he was safe, he was well out of his attackers’ reach.

Looking at her young friend closely, she could make out the pale gooseflesh slowly rising on the boy’s pale, scale-less forearms. “M’gann, turn up the temperature a bit, he’s getting cold,” she ordered grabbing the blanket around his waist and pulling it up around his shoulders, and continued rubbing his head.

A small purr rumbled through him, as he butted her hand with his nose. Bringing her other hand up, she continued to rub the top of his head, letting her other hand lightly stroke his cheek.

-.-

Nightmare groaned as consciousness returned to him. He couldn’t hear his pack, was he on hatchling duty again? Then again if he was on hatchling duty, he’d hear the little rascals, or at least feel them cuddling against him like they always did on the days he watched them. Instead of that he felt something…was it a sheet? He never slept under blankets, not since Caretaker left; and his head was warm, like it used to be when he’d cuddle next to a pack member.

“How far out are we?”

“About ten minutes. Why?”

“Cause I think he’s waking up,” a familiar voice said softly as something ran through his hair.

He was most definitely not at the nest. Shooting up, he instantly regretted the decision as the room spun, the edges of his vision fading to black momentarily as a result.

“Easy young one,” Wonder Woman smiled, reaching out towards the startled and disoriented boy.

Onyx snarled, his hair bristling and tail starting to swing back and forth. **“STAY AWAY FROM ME!”** he growled lashing out with his claws sloppily causing the woman to pull her hand back.

Scrambling away from her, the ground supporting Nightmare suddenly gave way, causing his hurt, tired body to slam into the cold, unforgiving metal floors with a painful crack. Releasing a pained yelp, he got into a crouch and backed into a corner, holding his hurting wrist close to his chest and curling in on himself.

Where was his pack? Why wasn’t he with them? Clearing his throat, Nightmare release a few barks calling for help. Going quiet he listened and started shifting into a fighting position, they’d be here soon, then he could go home. Only…Where was the reply? They always replied to distress calls, it was their way of letting each other know they were coming. Calling out again, he couldn’t hide the pathetic whine creeping into his call. Where were they? They couldn’t have abandoned him, Titania promised. His mom promised she wouldn’t leave him to the humans.

So where was she?

Wonder Woman’s heart dropped as slowly started moving towards him, her hands held up in a calming motion, as she tried to sooth the whimpering child. “It’s ok,” she said quietly, “We’re not going hurt you, we just want to help.”

Nightmare bared his fangs, yeah right. People never helped, people hurt.

A deep growl resounded throughout the ship, and the team looked at each other nervously. It seemed like he didn’t understand what they were saying, which meant they couldn’t calm him down, and they all knew what happened when an animal was cornered.

Kaldur gave M’gann a look and nodded to her. Understanding the silent order, the Martian girl turned her mind on his, and all Nightmare heard was _“I’m sorry about this,”_ before his world went black again.

-.-

** Mt. Justice: August 2, 9:10EDT **

The next time Onyx woke up, he was lying something soft. Opening his eyes he immediately shut them and covered his eyes from the blinding lights.

It took a few minutes, but, still shielding his eyes, he eventually sat up and peered around the bright, white room. Numerous different items of medical equipment were placed around the room, much like the lab used to be when the humans were on the island. He was also in a different pair of light blue pants, ones much longer than his old tattered pair that now chafed against skin that had been exposed to air for a while. He was also in some sort of matching shirt, the cloth feeling strange against his torso. And his wrist was stiff, looking at the hand he hurt, he found it wrapped in a stiff white cloth and a tube going into his arm on his elbow. It was uncomfortable, using his teeth he tried to pull it out, he didn’t want it.

“Don’t remove your IV, we don’t want you hurting yourself again.”

He sprang into a crouch, staring at a man in a dark suit with a symbol of a small animal whose name was escaping him at the moment. The shadow man took a step towards him and he bared his fangs, releasing a low snarl.

Batman stopped and analyzed the boy, he was confused and obviously afraid. Taking a step back he watched as he relaxed somewhat, the rate of the tail swinging slowing, and hair flattening from when it bristled up. But his eyes never left him.

“How did you end up on Isla Sorna?” Batman watched as he titled his head, apparently confused. It was possible that the boy couldn’t understand them. The boy had been alone on the Five Deaths for who knows how long going through Lord knows what, but he still needed to give it a try. “I promise that no one is going to hurt you here.”

In response, Onyx fumbled to yank out the IV, ignoring the pain in his arm and took a few steps away hissing lowly. He wanted to keep distance between them. He had no reason to trust the people who took him from his home, his pack, his family. He was not going to trust people who tossed him in a cage.

“How did you get on the island?”

At the question, Onyx growled, why couldn’t this man leave him be? It wasn’t hard to tell he wasn’t going to say anything.

Batman sighed and moved to a cabinet; the teen wasn’t going to be answering any questions, at least not today. Pulling out a water bottle, he opened it, and set it on a small dinner tray before stepping away from it. “Here, you’re probably thirsty.”

Even with the prospect of soothing his parched throat he didn’t approach. In fact, the teen backed further away into the corner baring his sharp fangs with a hiss as he pressed his palm to his injured arm, trying to staunch the blood flow.

“May I treat your wound?” he tried, making his tone a little less sharp. The bleeding injury looked jagged from where the teen ripped out the needle feeding him fluids to get the drugs out of his body.

Receiving a piercing shriek in reply, Batman stepped out of the room and joined Black Canary, Wonder Woman, and Red Tornado in the viewing room where they could keep an eye on their guest. “He’s afraid,” Canary remarked.

“Traumatized is more the word I’m thinking, but yes, he is scared,” Batman replied, watching as the teen went back to the bed, starting to explore the room cautiously. “Anything back on the scans and tests?”

“A few things,” Tornado replied. “First of all is his DNA: he’s a hybrid of human and dinosaur DNA, specifically the velociraptor. Which would make sense considering that he was found among the primary pack.”

“And identification?” Dinah frowned.

“Nothing off the missing persons’ database by facial recognition, we may want to test the human half of his DNA, the velociraptor DNA could’ve altered his appearance. But other than that and the fact he’s probably scared out of his mind, he’s very healthy. There’s a few signs that he’s broken bones, but they seem to reset themselves all correctly. Currently he’s broken his wrist and has two fractured ribs we’ll need to monitor. He has antibodies for diseases he would’ve needed to be vaccinated for, as well as a few other diseases that we should vaccinate the team for because of their missions. No signs of malnourishment; however, he has a few vitamin deficiencies, most likely due to his diet. There’s some scarring I am concerned about. Other than that, he’s a picture of health.”

They heard a crash and looked in to see that their young friend had accidently turned on the tv while he was investigating his surroundings. Causing him to jump back and knock over some of the equipment. Jumping onto the bed, he hit the bed controls and it started moving, making him cry out before falling off the bed. He stood up, his tail swinging angrily, and he knocked out a tray across the room.

“I’ll go in, maybe he’ll talk to me,” Canary sighed and went to the door.

Diana put a hand on the other heroine’s shoulder. “Let me come with, he’s known me longer.”

Dinah was quiet for a moment. “Does he trust you?”

“Not yet, but I don’t think he’s scared of me anymore,” she replied. “He stopped trying to attack me during my visits to the island, even started to get curious.”

“Let me try for now, we don’t want him to get overwhelmed,” Canary replied. “Besides, with his reactions on the Bioship, he could end up attacking you. I doubt he has much trust to offer anyone at this point.”

Wonder Woman looked like she wanted to protest, but she stood down nodding in agreement. Black Canary was unfortunately correct, she likely lost those precious pieces of trust he graciously offered when he woke up on that ship. He had every reason to be terrified of her.

Knocking lightly, Dinah went in and saw that he froze in place, much like a little kid who was caught doing something they shouldn’t.

“You’ve made quite the mess,” Canary chuckled slowing moving to the tray pick it up. “But it was an accident, you’re probably not that used to being inside a small lab like this.” Setting the tray on a far counter, she then slowly moved for the bed. As she moved closer, she noticed he was getting more fidgety and started baring his fangs more. Slowly she grabbed the tv remote and held it up. “You want to leave this on?”

Onyx tilted his head releasing a few curious clicks, that was the box he was messing with when the screen turned on; did the small box control the it in some way? All the screens he’d seen had a small keyboard and pad, not a small box of buttons.

“There’s more channels if you don’t want to watch this,” Canary said going to more kid and teen friendly stations.

She pressed a button and the screen changed making him jump onto all fours in surprise, but it did confirm his suspicion that the small box controlled the screen.

Dinah held back a chuckle as his eyes went wide, apparently he’d never been around a tv before, but it was good to see that she may be getting somewhere. Taking the opportunity, she got closer while he was distracted and moved to the bed. Picking up the roll of gauze, she sat down and started to unwrap a piece.

Feeling the bed move, Onyx realized his mistake, he took his eyes off her. He was too fascinated with the screen displaying things other than stats, models, equations, and words. Backing away, he growled lowly, sinking into a crouch and lifting his tail in preparation to jump.

As his sudden hostility became apparent, she set the bandages back down and picked up the rest of the equipment. Putting the remote next to the water bottle, she moved towards the door, having overstayed her welcome.

“He seemed more relaxed around you,” Batman commented as she rejoined them.

“You probably intimidated him,” she scolded.

“We need to know what happened to him.”

“The question is: Does he even know?” Canary asked watching the boy as he seemed to be slowly calming down. “For all we know he’s been like this since before he can remember, or he has amnesia.”

“We still have to try.”

“I know, look, let’s gain his trust first,” she replied. “Diana, you’ve visited the island regularly correct?”

“As often as I could to try and build trust.”

“Then I’ll need your help.”

“I’d be happy to.”

In the room Onyx curled up on the bed quietly, his tail tapping beside him as a sense of unease filled him. He could tell that the man and the woman were behind the mirror talking, he couldn’t hear what but it was definitely about him. It wasn’t the first time he was observed through a reflecting window.

Wrinkling his nose, the teen started licking the blood off his arm. He should’ve known better than to do that; it wasn’t the first time he’d ripped out an IV. Hopefully it wouldn’t be bad enough to require getting help from his kidnappers. It didn’t look like it, thankfully, the bleeding already seemed to be slowing down.

Once he finished cleaning, he peered at the buttoned remote at the end of his nest. Slowly, he reached out an arm and tapped it with a claw, yanking his arm back before any trap it had could get him. Craning his neck, he sniffed it before swatting at it again, seeing if a harder impact would do anything.

Nothing happened.

Nightmare gave a small growl as he looked at it, he wanted to mess with it and see what it did, but at the same time he knew that it could still be a trick. The golden-haired lady could’ve been messing with it to lure him into a false sense of security.

She was nice but looks could be deceiving. The other guy seemed scary—and considering the things he’d seen that was saying something—he couldn’t afford to give these people his trust.

Though…the lady smelled like the flying one who called herself Wonder Woman, perhaps she was waiting somewhere nearby? She was nice, she treated him like he wasn’t…something else other than human; she just held a small conversation, didn’t question anything, and was respectful.

Maybe they’d let him see the flying one, he liked her, she reminded him of Caretaker.

But now that just made him feel homesick, he wanted to go back to the island. Why couldn’t he just go home?


	8. Friend or Foe

**A/N: I just own this story. Onyx is my OC. I do not own YJ or JW.**

**_Telepathy_ **

**_/comm/_ **

** Mt. Justice: August 5, 20:44EDT **

Canary sighed as she looked at the monitor, looked like Tornado’s battle was going to take longer than she thought, so much for that date with Oliver.

Hearing a thud, she looked through the window to see the sleeping hybrid’s tail had slid off the bed and was now flicking every now and then from where it lazily hung.

She chuckled lightly. Despite how she could see that the teen was trying to hide himself behind a brave and ferocious mask, his tail was just so expressive. It was easy to see his emotions just by how his tail moved; the appendage was quite helpful when trying to figure out how this situation was affecting his mental state.

So far, from what she could tell through his body language, he was absolutely terrified. The boy didn’t trust them as far as he could throw them, and the only time anyone could get within arm’s reach was when he was sleeping. And even then, they had to hope he wouldn’t wake up. He’d bitten Bruce when he tried to collect a new DNA sample, hard enough to where the Bat was not going to be using his left arm in crime fighting for a few weeks till the bones healed. Red Tornado proved to be a worse option after the boy had almost shredded his chest up with his claws. Clark had offered to help, but only ended up being attacked after their young guest’s obvious warnings. And after the tail broke Clark’s nose with a single hit they stopped trying to get close.

Her daily sessions with him had been going almost nowhere as well. The good news was he wasn’t nearly as hostile with her as he was with men, leading her to believe he’d probably had more bad experiences with men rather than women, but he was still hostile. At least he could stand being in the same room with her for a prolonged period of time rather than outright attacking as he had with Clark and Red Tornado. Though, she hadn’t yet figured out why he hadn’t immediately attacked Batman like the other men.

Dinah sighed. Maybe she would take up Diana’s offer to be in the room with her during the sessions. Her advice had been helpful in getting their young guest to calm down and her ability to fluently speak any language—including animals—would no doubt be handy, but Canary wanted to try working with him more one-on-one. She had to try and offer an equal ground to show he could trust her. She wasn’t sure she wanted to see what would happen if he was suddenly outnumbered.

There was a rap on the door, and it slid open, revealing a certain blonde, arrow-themed vigilante. “Dinah, you ready?” Oliver Queen asked walking in.

“Unfortunately, we’ll have to rain check,” she replied.

The blonde vigilante raised an eyebrow. “Why?”

“Someone has to keep an eye on our guest, we don’t want him accidentally hurting himself,” she replied motioning to the teen, “again.”

Looking in his eyes widened, as a superhero he’d seen a lot, but this was new. It wasn’t like he hadn’t seen dinosaurs, his late friend Simon Masrani had invited him to the park on numerous occasions, and he gladly accepted all of his invitations. He brought Dinah, Roy and his sister Thea on a few trips, and even they joined Bruce and Dick on a couple of theirs.

Now that he thought about it, Masrani was joking about making a hybrid, but it was always just a dinosaur hybrid, not a human-dinosaur hybrid. Too bad it was that idea that got him killed.

“Oli?” Canary asked noticing how the normally talkative man went quiet.

“Was Masrani…?”

“No, Bruce believes it was Dr. Wu doing it without Masrani’s knowledge,” she replied.

Oliver nodded, he knew his friend would never condone this; Wu on the other hand…wouldn’t surprise him, that man didn’t stop his experiments even after the incident of the first park. “Alright, I’ll change the reservations, maybe we can catch a movie after you get out,” he said pecking her on the cheek.

“No need, I can take over,” Diana smiled walking in holding an oversized duffel.

“You sure?” Canary asked raising an eyebrow, her arrival was awfully convenient.

“It’s no problem Dinah, you go have fun,” she smiled patting her friend’s shoulder.

“What’s with the bag?” Oliver asked.

“Just some games, see if I can get him to interact with us in a way other than aggression.”

The male vigilante’s eyes widened and he pointed at the boy in the room, “Was he the one who broke Clark’s nose?”

“And Bruce’s arm,” Dinah replied as Oliver whistled.

“Kid’s got fight,” he commented, “can’t say I blame him, living alone on an island’s rough. I don’t think I could’ve done it at his age.”

“Alright you two, go on your date,” Diana smiled pushing them towards the door.

“Alright, oh, his food’s in that cabinet, he hasn’t been eating much of what’s been kept cold, but he seems to be starting to be able cooked meat down, which is an improvement.”

“You haven’t given him anything raw?” Diana offered.

“We started to when we realized he couldn’t eat more cooked meat than a few bites of steak without getting sick,” Dinah replied. “We’re trying to ease him into it, but he has to be kept on the IV till he stops getting sick. Unfortunately, every time he wakes up he rips it out again.”

“Dinah.”

“Alright, I’m going now, let us know if anything comes up.”

Diana smiled softly rolling her eyes before looking back to see her young island friend was starting to wake-up, so much for hoping he would sleep longer. Going to the cabinet she pulled out the food and set it on a tray. Knocking lightly on the door, she walked in to see him yawning, displaying his sharp fangs.

Rubbing his eyes, Nightmare flicked his tail, before focusing on the IV in his arm again, trying to be more careful than the last few times he pulled it out. Nonetheless, he still ended up with another jagged injury. As he licked another of his wounds, a recognizable scent became barely noticeable over the tang of iron. Looking towards the door to see the flying woman again. She was holding a tray and he could see a small slice of meat, some leaves, and a cup of water. “Did you sleep well?”

Onyx just curled his tail closer to him, and watched her closely, tilting his head; where had she been? She visited him all the time on the island, so what changed? Was it the fact he was in a cage again? Was that her job? Was she sent there to lure him into a trap?

Seeing him bare his teeth at her after a moment, Wonder Woman felt her shoulders droop, so much for making progress; he seemed just as wary now as he was before. His confusion during his rescue must’ve made her lose a few of precious fragments of trust he’d given her. However, he wasn’t growling, so that could be considered a step forwards in the right direction. “I brought you some food. I promise, it’s not as spicy as the jerky,” she said slowly getting closer to the small tv tray near the bed.

Onyx growled lowly, she was getting close, too close for his liking.

Diana stopped, waiting for him to make a move. If she was going to get anywhere with earning his trust again, he had to make the first move this time around.

Another growl came from him, and it was not his vocals. Apparently, his stomach was not in the mood to deal with his boycott of whatever these people were offering. Though…he would need his strength if he was to escape. Resigning, he slowly got up from the bed and looked at the tray in her hands.

Smiling, she set the tray on the counter and backed up.

Cautiously approaching he took the meat and the water, why she brought him plants he’ll never know. Curling up back on the bed he watched her, he honestly didn’t want to let his guard down while he was alone with her, not even to eat.

Seeing the situation Diana nodded, it was a step. “Do you want me to lower the lights, I’m sure having them this bright must be uncomfortable?”

Onyx nodded warily, giving a tired warble in reply. His head was pounding from the consistent, throbbing headache resulting from the ridiculously bright room.

She smiled lightly seems Bruce’s hunch was right after all, he could understand them, meaning Clark now owed her a hundred bucks. She then darkened room to a level that would be comfortable before finding a station that played “sounds of the jungle” or whatever they called it. Hopefully it would be more encouraging for him to fall back asleep; poor thing hadn’t been sleeping consistently since he arrived. He’d only slept in short increments of half an hour at most; and if he didn’t get some real sleep soon he was going to get sick. Well, sicker.

Onyx licked the remainder of the meat off his claws, it was smaller—far, far smaller—than the amount he usually consumed. A small green one would provide more meat than that, but hey, food is food. Just as long as it sated his stomach. However, there was no way he was ever going to eat a plant.

Grabbing the glass, he sniffed it cautiously, he remembered how the doctor would slip something in his drink, next thing he knew he was waking up and there would be bandages on some part of his body and he always felt weak and sick. Hopefully they didn’t do the same. Taking the water, he slowly drank it, before setting the glass on the nearby table and curling back up on the bed.

Hearing the door open again, Nightmare gave a soft sigh and lifted his head. He just wanted to be left alone, was that too much to ask?

Seeing he was finished with his meal, Diana walked back in carefully putting the finished glass and plate onto the tray, before she moved it to the table next to the door. “You were hungry, weren’t you?” she smiled slowly picking up the surprise she brought—the real trick had been hiding her presents from the Batman, but she pulled it off by some miracle. “I brought something for you, I know it can be pretty boring in here without something to do.”

Tilting his head, Nightmare gave a soft croon of confusion as he looked over the objects. He’d never seen anything like the book she was holding. It was so colorful, yet, all pictures inside it were blank. There was also a thing of just as colorful writing utensils that looked like what the scientists used to take notes during his tests. All the books he saw held pictures and words or blank lines he would need to write on.

“It’s a coloring book,” Wonder Woman explained opening a page and setting it on her lap as she sat across from him, making sure he could see the pictures, “you take one of these color pencils and…” she trailed off removing a pencil, coloring in the some of the circles on the patterned page, “like that. I wasn’t sure what you’d like so I got you the ones my friends always use.”

Slowly putting the box of pencils in the book, she slowly set it on the table at the end of the bed. Fortunately, he was more curious today, so she wasn’t lashed at as she intruded on his territory. She watched as he slowly used his tail to pull it off the end table, letting it fall onto the bed and using the extra extremity to pull it closer like he was scared it would be taken away.

“I also brought you this,” she grunted yanking the massive plush teddy bear out of the bag, “these rooms can get pretty cold, so I figured this big heated bear might keep you warmer.”

If it wasn’t for how’d nervous she’d been in hoping he’d accept her offerings, she would’ve found his shocked expression funny. Now she was only hoping that he trusted her enough to receive the gifts.

His big gold eyes stared at the large plush in wonder, Diana set it down across from him and watched silently as he carefully bat at it like a cat would bat at mouse or toy, looking for a reaction. Seeming satisfied that the bear wasn’t going to jump him, he pulled it closer, before she smiled as he gave what she had to assume was squawk as he felt the bear before rubbing up against the extra soft plush with loud purrs.

She pulled out the button to turn on the heater and turned it on, smiling as he settled closer to the bear. “This’ll turn the heat off and on,” she said holding up the button and setting it across from him before digging back into the bag. “I brought a book of my favorite Greek legends. Do you want me to read them?”

At her question, Onyx lifted his head from the fluffy heaven and released a few short clicks to express his curiosity. He’d never heard of a legend before, hopefully they were like the books Caretaker read him. Some of his personal favorites when he was a hatchling were by Dr. Seuss. Though, Caretaker never explained what those creatures that this Dr. Seuss showed in his books were, she told him they came from “Imagination” but she never explained what that place was like, and he couldn’t find it on any of the world maps the Doctor showed him. Was it really as colorful as the books showed?

For Diana, his reaction was highly encouraging, at the mention of reading something he perked up right away; much like how she used to when she had been a child wanting her mother to tell her stories of the gods and the great heroes of old. Hiding her growing smile, she opened up to the story of the war between the gods and the titans and began reading.

Nightmare pulled the plush animal closer as he listened to the story with curiosity. It was nothing like what Caretaker read him, but it was interesting nonetheless. Though these stories were more confusing that Dr. Seuss’ recounting of the wonderous land of Imagination, how could one parent eat all its offspring? And how were they still alive when the parent’s head was cut off? And how could a hatchling be born out of one’s head? Was it a parasite? How did this “Zeus” survive? Did he really live up in the sky? Was he not worried a pterosaur would eat him? Why did he never see any of these creatures on the islands? What about this Poseidon? How did he not get eaten by all the beasts lurking under the water?

Yawning, he allowed his eyes to slowly shut as he listened to the next story…maybe a short nap wouldn’t be so bad…

And maybe…maybe he could give these people a chance. They hadn’t hurt him yet.

Finishing the story of Persephone and Hades, Diana looked up to realize that her audience had fallen asleep. The young hunter was now curled up, head buried just under the bear’s head, hands bunching into the fur, knees tucked close to his chest, the tip of his tail twitching from where it curled around the stuffed animal’s feet, and the coloring book right beside him.

Silently getting up, she set the book down on the tray picking it up as quietly as she could so she wouldn’t wake him. He had to be tired if he fell asleep with her in the room. “Sleep tight,” she whispered closing the door behind her.

-.-

** August 6, 00:31EDT **

Onyx buried his head back into the soft warmth bleeding into him from his new furry pillow. A familiar scent tickled his nose and he whined, he didn’t want to hunt, he wanted to sleep. He felt like he was sleeping on one of the soft clouds in the sky.

Hearing something rustle, he realized whoever was walking around wasn’t leaving. Reluctantly, he forced his eyes open and lifted his head groggily looking over his piece of heaven to where the shadow man sitting close to him, holding some a bottle of disinfectant.

He looked up at him an expression that he couldn’t quite decipher settling on his face. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

He gave a half-hearted glare—or at least he thought it was, because he softened his expression. “You can go back to sleep,” he reassured carefully taking his arm, slowly starting to remove the white material covering his wrist.

The only reason Nightmare didn’t lash out was because he was too tired to care. The effort needed to keep his eyes open began growing gradually, eventually becoming a conscious fight to stay awake.

Mewling weakly when his arm started stinging in the last area he removed the IV again, a hand carded through his hair and he purred lightly letting his head drop back down. Realizing his eyes were closing again, he forced them open as they tried to flutter shut. What helped him stay awake was the moment of pain in his arm as the tube was reset again. Shrinking back with a whine, the hand returned to the top of his head as he could make out the man talking softy, “It’s ok. You can sleep. You’re safe.”

With that reassurance, Onyx let himself be dragged back down into the darkness.

-.-

** 11:27EDT **

Nightmare yawned as he slowly sat up feeling a little disoriented from his sleep.

“Morning sleeping beauty,” the dark-haired woman greeted with a wide smile holding the book—wait…this was a different book, the colors and words were different than what she had last time he woke up. “Did you sleep well?”

He gave a hesitant nod and curled his tail closer. Was she going to read more stories?

“I’m guessing lowering the lights helped. I bet it was hard to sleep with that on,” she said with a sympathetic smile as she set the book down and got up. Reaching to the table, she grabbed a tray and it was full of meat. “I noticed you didn’t eat much the other night, I thought perhaps this would fill you up more.”

Nodding he took the tray and set it next to him. Sniffing it warily before biting down on the crispy meat. He blinked, it was odd, but it tasted good, possessing some extra flavors that regular meat didn’t have. It reminded him of some of the strange large mammal carnivores they drove to extinction a while ago.

“Bacon, it comes from a pig,” she replied, seeing the question in his piercing gaze. “I too enjoyed it much when I first came to the modern world. Along with ice cream, it is a delicious confection of cream and sugar, I bet you would enjoy it as much as I do. Perhaps I can bring you some? Does mint-chocolate chip sound good? It’s one of my favorite flavors.”

Nightmare tilted his head, he didn’t know exactly what she was talking about, but it sounded like she wasn’t too familiar with being around people. Was she from a lab too? That would explain the broken cuffs on her wrists, they were just like his when he broke out the first few times.

“Can I ask you a few questions?” she asked her smile fading to a more concerned expression…at least Onyx thought it was concerned, reading human body language was different than reading raptor. And it had been a while since he had to read humans. “You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to. That’s perfectly fine. Do you know how you got on Isla Sorna?”

Nightmare stopped mid-bite…how did he get on the island? It was one of the many questions that the doctor refused to answer. In response he dipped his head, shaking it slightly.

Diana smiled, he was responding, this was a huge step towards earning trust. In all her weeks of going to Isla Sorna, he’d only ever responded with hisses, growls, and in the later times a few curious chirps and chitters. Now, if only she could get him to speak…

If he could.

She hadn’t thought about that. There was a chance his vocal chords hadn’t developed properly due to his genes. Her young friend, while able to speak whatever velociraptors spoke, could be equivocally mute human-wise.

“Can you tell me your name?”

Nightmare’s tail flicked nervously, he didn’t want to, but it wasn’t like he was going back to the island soon anyways, trust was a two-way street, if he trusted them, if he behaved, then perhaps he could go back. “…n…nn…name?” he rasped quietly, glancing down and kneading his claws in the sheets.

Dread began to course through him. What was he thinking? Why did he just talk?! It was stupid! Now they knew he could understand them and they wouldn’t say what they would do to him nearby. He literally just threw himself to the mosasaurs!

Wonder Woman, on the other hand, internally cheered. She got him to talk, so not only was her growing worry proven wrong, but this was a ginormous step in trust. It was likely he was looking for an opportunity to escape, but for now they just needed to build that trust till he could be reassured that he had absolutely no reason to fear them. “Yes honey, your name. Can you tell me?”

The boy licked his lips, his shoulders shrugging up as he curled in on himself more. “hu…hu…hum…hu-man or r-rap…r-rap-tor?”

“Let’s start with the one you’re more comfortable with,” she said gently.

“Night…mare. My n-name is Night-mare,” he sounded out, keeping his eyes down. His voice wasn’t as raspy as it could’ve been considering he hadn’t spoken English in a few years, but it was still difficult for him to speak the language.

“Nice to meet you Nightmare, I’m Diana,” she smiled holding out a hand.

Nightmare’s fearful golden eyes looked up at her and she nearly grimaced as he flinched away. Strengthening her resolve she kept her hand out, not moving away or closer. Slowly, the teen unfurled himself and craned his head trying to analyze the situation.

He then spoke quietly, had she not had super-hearing she would’ve missed it, “…Is s-something sup-posed t-to ha-happen?”

She chuckled lightly trying to be reassuring, he reminded her a lot of herself when she first arrived from Themyscira. “You shake it.”

He furrowed his brows before scanning her hand with more scrutiny. “…w-why aren’t y-you shaking i-it?”

Wonder Woman gave a short laugh before stifling it, “Give me your hand.” Cautiously lifting his hand, Nightmare tried to hold it out only for him to be stopped as the IV got caught. “Your other hand,” she corrected switching her hand and turning his focus away from the IV before he could hurt himself again by removing it. Reluctantly, Nightmare switched hands holding it straight out in front of him. Carefully clasping his hand with hers, she shook it, “I’m known as Wonder Woman, but my real name is Diana. It’s nice to meet you Nightmare.”

“I-is it n-normal to h-have two n-names?”

She smiled. “No.”

He tilted his head in confusion. “Th-then why…?”

“Because I’m a superhero,” she answered, “I have the hero name—Wonder Woman—that people know me by, but I have my regular name so I can work like a regular person.”

The hybrid furrowed his eyebrows, that answer made no sense. The only reason he had two names was because he was named as both a human and as a velociraptor.

“Nightmare, do you know what a superhero does?” Wonder Woman asked and he shook his head. “We help people in danger and save lives. We have two identities: our hero one that everyone knows us by, and our civilian one that’s just known only to a few and lets us live like regular people.”

“Then…i-if you h-help people…why d-did you t-take me?” Nightmare stuttered, his tail starting to tap the bed. “The i-island was s-safe, the p-pack was g-good.”

Diana sighed moving to put a hand on his shoulder when he hissed, his hair bristling and fangs bared; the message was clear: back off.

“I’m so sorry about that, but you don’t belong out there—I know you feel otherwise—and while yes you fit in with the raptors, you need human interaction too.” She watched as he moved away from her and his tail seemed a little droopy, “I’m guessing you haven’t had the best experiences with full-blooded humans?”

Onyx chose not to answer that, he may be starting to try and trust them, but he was not going to say his deepest darkest feelings to mere strangers.

His silence was all she needed to determine an answer and suddenly some of the scars marring his body and his reactions towards Bruce, Red, and Clark made too much sense. And whenever she found who inflicted them, they were going to pay, _dearly_.

“At least allow us to let you see a different perspective if that is the case,” she offered. “We want to put you on a team with other young heroes around your age. You’d have a place to stay, food, water, and other necessities. All you’d need to do is participate in training and team building exercises and do recon missions.”

Onyx nodded lightly, it seemed reasonable.

Diana smiled. “We’ll need to find you a regular name, I can…”

“Onyx.”

“Hmm?”

“M-my Master, b-before the p-people left and I e-escaped, he n-named me Onyx,” he answered keeping his eyes down, “D-does that work?”

“I’d say that works rather well,” Diana nodded, hiding her grimace at the derogatory term of _master_. “Now, how would you feel about having a _mentor_?”

His gold eyes glanced up at her, filled with fear and surprisingly, a hint of curiosity. “…Wh-what’s a men-tour?”


	9. New Arrival

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Onyx/Nightmare is my OC, I own him and this story, nothing else.

**_Telepathy_ **

**“Raptor”**

** Mt. Justice: August 19, 19:34 **

“Initiate combat training in 3…2…1.”

Artemis and M’gann stood watching Kaldur and Superboy spar each other, Onyx standing on the sidelines with Wally waiting for next round.

“So uh Kaldur’s nice don’t ya think? Handsome, commanding; you should totally go out with him,” Artemis said.

The Martian girl scoffed. “He’s like a big brother to me, but do you know who’d make the cutest couple? You and Wally.” They looked at the redhead trying to fit half a burrito in his mouth while the hybrid raised an eyebrow before using his tail to slam him on the back as he started choking.

“You’re so full of passion and he’s so full of…uh…”

“It?” Artemis suggested and they both laughed.

“Ok, what about Onyx?” M’gann asked.

Artemis glanced at said person, whom was ignoring Wally as he attempted to chew him out for something, she had to admit he was cute, in a younger sibling sort of way. “He doesn’t seem to talk much.”

“Yeah, he’s pretty shy,” M’gann confirmed with a pout. “We hardly ever see him around the Cave—Well, I hardly ever see him, Superboy says he’s spotted him watching every now and then, but he’s skittish and runs off just as soon as we find him. You know…this is actually the longest I’ve seen him out.”

“Fail Aqualad.”

“Black Canary taught me that,” Superboy said helping him up.

“Our turn,” Wally sneered.

“Just don’t choke on your own ego,” Onyx replied.

“Burn,” Artemis grinned.

A hatch at the roof opened and Red Tornado flew down from the ceiling. “Do you have a mission for us?” Wally asked rushing over.

“Mission assignments are the Batman’s responsibility.”

“Yeah, well the Batman is with the Robin doing the Dynamic Duo thing in Gotham. But you’re heading somewhere: a hot date, or a mission?” he pressed.

“If we can be of help,” Kaldur added.

Tornado turned and began typing, pulling up the image of an old man. “This is Kent Nelson, a friend,” Tornado stated. “He is 106 years old…”

“Guy doesn’t look a day over 90,” Wally snorted.

“…and he has been missing for 23 days. Kent was a member of the Justice Society, the precursor to today’s Justice League.”

“Of course, Nelson was Earth’s sorcerer supreme, he was Dr. Fate,” Kaldur said.

“More like Dr. Fake; guy knows a little advanced science and dumbledores it up to scare the bad guys and impress the babes,” Wally scoffed quietly.

“Kent may simply be on one of his walkabouts, but he is caretaker to the Helmet of Fate, the source of the Doctor’s mystic might, and such power should not be left unguarded.”

“He is like the great sorcerer priests and priestesses of Mars, I would be honored to help find him,” Megan volunteered.

“Me too!” Wally said shooting his hand up instantly. “So honored, I can barely stand it. Magic rocks!”

“Take this, it is the key to the Tower of Fate,” Tornado said handing it to Aqualad.

“What are the chances we both so admire the mystic arts?” Wally said trying to impress M’gann.

“Zero to none since you don’t believe in them,” Artemis muttered and the hybrid nodded.

-.-

** Salem: 20:22EDT **

“So Wallace? When did you first realize your honest affinity for magic?” Artemis asked as they flew towards their destination.

“Well, I—I don’t wanna brag, but before I became Kid Flash, I seriously considered becoming a wizard myself,” he replied.

Nightmare pressed the back of his hand to his nose trying to block out the suddenly foul scent.

“We’ve arrived at the coordinates.”

“There’s nothing there,” Superboy stated.

“Take us down,” Aqualad ordered.

Stepping out Onyx sniffed the air to clear his nose of Wally’s scent change from lying, only to catch another scent, this one worse. Looking over he saw a small red-eyed animal looking at them. It hissed and he growled back before it mewled and scampered off. Going to the field they watched as KF ran around before he skid to a stop in front of them.

“Nothing, this isn’t simple camouflage,” he stated.

“So what do you think? Adaptive micro-opto-electronics combined with phase shifting?” Artemis asked.

“Absolutely…not! Clearly mystic powers are at work here!” he exclaimed as Megan joined them.

“I’m going to strangle him,” Artemis whispered.

“Be my guest, I’ll help,” Onyx muttered as he sniffed the air again. The other scent was back, but it was stronger than before, looking around he noticed that the furball wasn’t back…so what was it?

“You ok?” Artemis asked looking concerned.

“Fine, I just keep catching the same scent, must be some little furry creature I saw earlier, probably still prowling around,” he replied.

“What did it look like?”

“Uh…orange, red eyes, four legs, pointy ears, a tail,” he stated and saw her frowning, “it kinda hissed at me.”

The archer chuckled. “That’s a cat, their pretty common.”

Nightmare’s eyes widened. “I’ve never seen one that tiny.”

“And how big are the ones you’ve seen?”

Onyx tapped his chin, the long-toothed mammals were pretty rare to see on the island; in fact, last time he saw one was when humans were still on the island. They’d probably all’d been eaten by now, or starved at least. “Well…they stood up to my shoulder and had these two big teeth coming out of their maws. The meat was alright.”

“You’ve eaten a saber-toothed lion?” she gaped and he nodded.

“Once. Are the little ones edible?” Onyx questioned tilting his head as the blonde balked.

“In some places yes, but most are kept as pets.”

That caused Nightmare’s eyebrows to furrow in confusion, what was a pet? It didn’t sound like something in the food chain. “Pet?” he said, slowly saying the strange word to make sure he got it right.

“An animal companion.”

“Oh so a pack member,” Onyx perked up, “I guess that’s good, I don’t know what I’d do without my pack…” he trailed off, “so cats aren’t recommended for eating?”

“No.”

Onyx nodded. “Makes sense. The big ones didn’t taste that great.”

“Not much of a cat person?” she questioned.

“If they all smell like this, then no,” he answered scrunching his nose as she rolled her eyes as they joined the group. “Besides, small animals are almost always stringy and never carry enough meat. Except dodos, dodos always are good.”

Artemis raised an eyebrow as he seemed to almost drool at the thought of the strange fat birds from _Ice Age_. “Sorry, we’re fresh out of dodos.”

Nightmare gave a despondent mewl that Artemis knew that she could never replicate no matter how hard she tried in response to the statement. He honestly looked like someone just told him they killed his puppy. She made a note to go buy him some fried chicken legs to apologize, chickens had to be close enough to dodos, right?

“This is a test of faith,” Aqualad said stepping past everyone with the key. “Stand behind me.” Walking forwards he stuck the key out into the air, where part of it disappeared, and then a giant tower appeared. Opening the door they walked inside.

“Uh…where’d the door go?” Superboy asked and they turned to see that after it slammed shut behind them, it vanished into thin air.

“Greetings, you have entered with a key, but the tower does not recognize you. State your purpose and intent,” a glowing Kent Nelson said appearing in front of them.

Wally stepped forwards, “We are true believers, here to find Dr. Fate!”

Onyx smacked his forehead as the shade gave them a sympathetic look before vanishing. Hearing creaks under them, they looked down as the floor gave way under them, dropping them into a chasm with lava at the bottom below.

Artemis pulled out a crossbow in her jacket, loading an arrow, she fired the cabled arrow and swung over to grab Kaldur and Onyx, landing on the wall. To put less strain on the rope, Onyx crawled off, using his claws to keep a hold in the rock. Miss Martian flew and grabbed Wally, staying in the air, as Superboy grabbed the wall and slid down, burning off his boots in the lava.

“Those were my favorite boots,” he grumbled.

“Be glad it was the boots and not the skin,” Nightmare reminded looking up he saw M’gann slowly falling down towards the lava.

“Having trouble…maintaining altitude…I’m so hot,” the Martian girl huffed.

“You sure are,” Wally swooned.

“WALLY!” Artemis and Onyx snapped.

“Hey inches above sizzling death I’m entitled to speak my mind!”

“WELL THEN! IF THAT’S THE CASE! YOU ARE ABSOLUTE IMBICILE!” the hybrid shouted back.

“My physiology and M’gann’s are susceptible to extreme heat, we must get out quickly,” Kaldur advised.

“Hello Megan, we never really answered the question!” she realized. “RED TORNADO SENT US HERE TO SEE IF MR. NELSON AND THE HELMET WERE SAFE!”

Metal doors closed over the lava, and Superboy hopped down, followed by the thuds of Wally and Megan hitting. Leaping off Onyx landed on his hands and feet like a cat, before standing straight up as Artemis and Kaldur propelled down next to him.

“This platform, it should be red hot, but it is cool to the touch.”

“Good for us,” Onyx said.

“Don’t worry Megalicious, I got ya,” Wally said helping her up.

“ENOUGH!” Artemis exclaimed as she shoved him back. “YOU’RE LITTLE IMPRESS MEGAN AT ALL COSTS GAME NEARLY GOT US ALL BARBEQUED!”

“When did this become my fault?!”

“When you lied about believing in magic to…whatever that was!” Onyx growled crossing his arms and baring his fangs.

“Wally, you don’t believe?”

The speedster looked at all his teammates who were either staring or glaring at him. “Fine! Fine! I lied about believing in magic! But magic is the real lie!”

“Wally, I studied for years at the Conservatory of Sorcery in Atlantis. The mystic arts created the icons on my skin that power my water bearers,” Aqualad stated.

“Ever hear of bioelectricity? Hey, in ancient cultures fire was once considered magic. Today it’s all just a bunch of tricks.”

“You’re pretty close-minded for a guy who can break the sound barrier in his sneakers,” Artemis growled.

“That’s science! I recreated Flash’s laboratory experiment and here I am! Everything can be explained by science!”

“How about we test that theory?” Aqualad asked gripped a handle.

“No wait the back-draft from the lava will roast us alive!” Wally warned as he opened the doorway and snow came out.

“It’s snow!” M’gann smiled.

“Are you ever tired of being wrong?” Artemis smirked.

With wide eyes Nightmare stood looking at the snowflake falling in front of him. Sticking out his tongue, he caught the flake on it, before shivering. “Geez that’s cold.”

“C’mon!” Artemis said jumping through.

Onyx gave a low whine, before tossing himself through the doorway. Landing in the snow, he shivered and stood up. “What is this?”

“Snow, haven’t you seen snow before?” Artemis asked.

“I grew up in the tropics, so no…is it always this cold?” he shivered.

“Sadly, yes.”

“Damnit.”

Hearing a grunt they saw Wally dusting some snow off his shirt. “Well?” Artemis asked.

“Ever hear of string theory? We’re in a pocket dimension,” he replied.

“Can we just find an exit now that the other one’s gone?” Nightmare groaned, shivering violently.

“What’s that?” Megan asked pointing at a cane floating in the middle of the icy landscape.

“Maybe it’s Nelson’s magic wand,” Wally said rolling his eyes as he and Artemis walked over and grabbed it.

“I got it!” The staff began glowing. “I can’t let go!” they exclaimed as they flew up into the air and vanished.

“Why did they get to leave?”

“How do you know they were going somewhere warmer?” Superboy asked.

“And how do you know they were going somewhere colder?” Nightmare replied.

The group continued walking along, trying to find a way out as their hybrid friend was getting colder, and with it, his temper shorter.

“I don’t understand Wally; it’s almost like he needs to believe the impossible can’t happen,” Miss Martian sighed.

“People like Wally need to feel control, meaning for him he uses science to control what he can’t understand. Admitting magic may be real would relinquish that last bit of control he has,” Aqualad replied. A creak sounded and he looked around. “Hear that?”

“Yeah,” Superboy replied as they looked up a hill to see that a door with steps had opened on the top.

 **“FINALLY!”** Breaking into a sprint, Nightmare leapt through the doorway, the others soon fallowing his lead. He fell through towards the ground, catching himself in a crouch, he rolled out of the way as the others crashed down where he was a moment ago.

“Friends of yours?”

Looking next to him he saw Nelson, Artemis, and Wally standing next to a giant bell. Hearing what sounded like electricity he looked over and saw some dude with a wand, a kid with hair shaped like horns, and the cat. “Duck!”

“Friends of yours?” Wally asked as they avoided the shot Abracadabra sent at them.

Rolling out of the way of the next shot, he saw Nelson and Wally vanish into the bell, the horned boy and the cat fallowing.

Hearing another shot, he jumped out of the way just as one hit was he was a moment before. Superboy charged the magician when another shot came from the wand, trapping him in an electric net. Kaldur tried running at him from the side, when he too was caught. Racing behind a set of stairs he watched as Abra’ seemed to be focused only on those fighting him currently. M’gann was using her telekinesis to deflect the shots as Artemis fired, before he ducked an arrow and sent a bolt at her. Crawling around to the other side, he watched M’gann get hit.

“Now…where did that one go?” he muttered, before the fake magician was slammed down by something latching onto his back. Falling to the ground, he was forced to release his wand as a set of claws dug into his shoulder. Tossing the wand away, Onyx held down the struggling man, baring his fangs threateningly. “How do I stop the electric nets?”

“As if I’d tell you!”

“Worth a shot,” he shrugged before he punched his lights out. Hopping up he ran over to where he tossed the wand. “Hope this works.” Closing his eyes he snapped the wand, and his friends screams of pain stopped. “Guess it did.” Trotting back over to the unconscious man, he hog-tied him with his lasso. “So how y’all doin’?”

“Been better, good job,” Kaldur congratulated.

“Thanks,” he said, “wonder how Wally and Fate handled cat guy?”

-.-

** Mt. Justice: August 20, 6:45EDT **

“So what’s his claim now?” Onyx asked as he raided the pantry looking for M’gann’s cookies.

“He’s still claiming that he doesn’t believe in magic,” Artemis growled.

“You’re kidding?”

“Nope.”

“I swear his head is thicker than a pacy’s skull,” he muttered.

“So what are you doing?” Artemis asked looking over his shoulder.

“Trying to find the—HA!”

Artemis looked over his shoulder with wide eyes, it was no secret Miss M started hiding her cookies to keep KF from eating them all, the problem was that no one had been able to find them.

No one, except for Nightmare whom was now happily digging in.

“Where on Earth did you find that?”

“I’m sorry to say that a Magician never reveals his secrets.”

“Onyx! What in Zeus’ name do you think you’re doing?!” Wonder Woman called making the hybrid yelp and try to hide the evidence quickly as Artemis walked away briskly as the heroine began scolding her protégé.

-.-

** Isla Nublar: 21:43 **

/Relax/ a sub pilot said to his partner as they drove into the Jurassic World aquatic enclosure, /anything trapped in here would be dead by now/

“Don’t jinx yourselves boys,” a feminine voice snarled as a hand slammed on the glass from outside, causing both to jump as a dark-skinned girl with blue scales covering most her body that was visible from the dark armor she wore appeared. A powerful tail that reminded much like that of a crocodile’s moved back and forth behind her. Some webbing between her fingers and some fins on her legs could be seen. Her long waist-length dark hair that faded to blonde at the tips with blue highlights billowed about her finned ears, and gills on her neck.

/Y-Yes ma’am/ they nodded moving forwards. Their lights travelled across the ocean floor until it settled on something, a skeleton, a dinosaur skeleton covered in sea life that was slowly decomposing the remains.

“So this is the once great beast?” the girl scoffed swimming around it with powerful swings of her tail, “Get a sample.”

She moved back as the arms of the submarine reached forwards, the clamp grasping down on one of the ribs, holding it steady as the saw came up, cutting through the bone. As soon as they finished, she grabbed it, shoving the piece into a tube on her back, sealing it tight. 

Looking up, she narrowed her eyes, seems like her nose wasn’t lying after all. “Time to make my leave,” she whispered turning away from the sub and trusting herself forwards into the darkness towards the door. It would be more preoccupied with the mincemeat she left behind anyways.

Swimming out of the gate, she went into the Manta Sub waiting for her. “Call the ground team,” she said wringing out her dripping hair. “We’ve got it.”

-.-

/Specimen collected, B5 has returned/

“Understood,” a slightly tanned girl with white-blonde hair, white scales, and a long tail replied tapping her comm. She turned to a tall man with a long white ponytail, and a bronze and black mask. “Master, the sample is secure on Manta’s ship.”

“B3, get your idiots to close the gate.”

Another with a clubbed tail and thick armor-like plates nodded and the man kneeling beside him at the controls began talking, “Marine 1 exit immediately…Marine 1?”

/…/

“We’ve lost contact.”

“Close the gates anyways,” the man replied.

“B5’s back,” the girl said as her amber eyes turned up as a teal-winged girl flew down, her scales contrasting her wet auburn hair.

“We have company.”

“I thought I smelled a Rex,” the other female hissed, “Pity B1 was unable to join us for this mission, he certainly would’ve been helpful.”

The visible eye in the man’s mask narrowed, “He has another assignment. B4, tell Sportsmaster to start the helicopter.”

The auburn-haired girl nodded, flying over and tapping the window, making a swirl motion with her hand before flying off into the stormy skies. Meanwhile, the leader gave a sharp roar getting the attention of the other two and she motioned to the helicopter.

“We’re leaving.”

“But the doors aren’t completely closed yet!” the man protested.

“Then hurry it up,” the club-tailed hybrid replied joining his teammate as they walked to the helicopter. As they got inside, they both snorted as the tech screamed as he saw the T-Rex standing behind him. the helicopter began to lift off as he sprinted towards them, desperately reaching for the ladder dangling off the side as he dropped his tablet.

“Is he gonna make it?” the pale one sneered as they started to fly over the mosasaur enclosure.

In an act of sheer desperation, the man leapt, and somehow managed to grab onto the ladder. Unfortunately, so did the T-Rex, her massive jaws clamping down on the final ends of the ladder.

“We’re gonna stall!” Sportsmaster called from the front.

“Cut the line!”

“Yes Master,” the female grinned, brandishing her claws, “this’ll be fun.”

Almost as if to prove her wrong, the T-Rex yanked on the ladder too hard, breaking it off and thus making it unable to eat them. The man on the ladder laughed and cheered, and then it was suddenly ended as the Mosasaurus blasted out of the water, its massive jaws effortlessly tearing through the ladder and the man on it before it fell back into the deep.

“…She didn’t mention it was still alive, did she?” B3 questioned.

“No,” their master replied curtly, “tell Manta to depart the area immediately, we’ll meet him at Site B. The Mosasaurus cage is compromised.”


	10. Downtime

**A/N: I just own my OC and changes to the main plot, nothing else.**

**/comm/**

**_Telepathy_ **

** Gotham City: August 27, 6:10EDT **

Nightmare grunted as he was slammed into the wall, by Clayface. Getting to his feet, he looked to see that M’gann was already down.

Kid Flash ran forwards, and attempted to punch the mud pile, when the clay wrapped around his leg, slamming face-first into the ground before tossing him into one of the many crates in the storehouse.

Superboy charged and leapt onto their opponent, but instead of falling to the ground as expected, the clay slowly surrounded him and dragged him inside. Looking at each other, Robin and Nightmare charged, pulling out his lasso he tossed it and prayed that for once that his training with Wonder Woman was paying off. Seemed God was listening because his lasso wrapped around the bottom of Suberboy’s boot. He came to a stop before yanking with all the strength on the rope, pulling his teammate out of the mud.

“How is he?” Robin asked running over.

“I’m—” the clone began.

“Watch out!” Nightmare warned jumping over the clay wall as it swung by, slamming Robin and Superboy into the crates, knocking both out cold.

Clayface turned and looked at both him and Aqualad, before splitting into two. “Great,” Nightmare muttered as one charged him. Rolling under a swing, he used his claws, to slice through his hand, knocking it off, only for Clayface to laugh as it regrew. Swinging both his arms, Clayface knocked Nightmare out of the air as he attempted to jump between the incoming clay whips, sending him flying through a post, where he fell unconscious.

Aqualad grunted as he slammed into the wall, looking up he saw the two halves merging back together. The hand morphed into a mallet as the mud minster raised it above his head to crush the team leader with a roar.

The glass ceiling caved in as Batman came through, tossing two Bat-a-rangs, they exploded in his arm. Punching the ground where the Batman landed, Clayface growled as he backflipped out of the way, pulling out his taser, and shocking him. The electricity forcing him to destabilize into a puddle.

-.-

** Mt. Justice: 7:45EDT **

“I need to talk to Aqualad,” Batman stated as the team bridged in. “The rest of you, hit the showers, get your injuries treated, and head home.”

“Home? I am home,” Superboy muttered walking past.

Going to the showers, Onyx hissed as the steaming water ran over his cuts and bruises. “That’ll take a few days to heal,” he muttered, feeling his side, definitely broke a rib or two. Finally rinsing the last of the dirt off, he tossed on a pair of pajama pants and went down to the kitchen for food.

“What did you do? Get in a fight with a truck?” Canary asked looking at the bruised and bleeding teenager.

“No, but he hit like ankylosaur,” he replied.

“You need to go to the med bay.”

“I have advanced healing, it’ll take a day or two to heal this. Besides, I’ve taken worse, trust me,” he replied wincing as the cuts started stinging.

“Alright, come back down if it takes longer than two days ok?” she said. “If you don’t I’ll get Wonder Woman to drag you here.”

Onyx gave a light smile. “Fine,” he sighed, no point in arguing with Black Canary.

“Oh yes, make sure to come down to the training room this afternoon, there’s some new things Diana wants to work with you on.”

“Thanks,” he called continuing his path to the kitchen. Going in he immediately made his way to the fridge, pulling out an uncooked steak, he closed the fridge and shoved it the microwave, setting it for a random time till it seemed to be warm enough. Once it reached his satisfaction, Nightmare grabbed it and started eating.

Wally ran in and froze, seeing his teammate tearing at the raw meat. “Dude that can’t be healthy.”

“For you maybe,” he replied walking back to his room as he licked the blood off his claws, as Wally suddenly lost his appetite. “Later.”

Going to his room he locked the door, turned off the lights, but turned on the heating lamp and curled up on the bed with his bear. Turning on his speakers, he went to one of his playlists and tossed on the music, slowing dozing off.

-.-

** August 27, 15:37EDT **

Onyx yawned, stretching out before looking at the clock. He slept for several hours longer than what he would’ve during any naps back home. Guess there was one perk of staying in his new prison.

Getting up he tossed on a pair of shorts and a t-shirt for training with his mentor, almost falling as he attempted to get his tail through the extra leg made for him.

“Morning Onyx,” M’gann greeted as he walked in. “I just finished making eggs and bacon, want some?”

“Sure,” he smiled grabbing a plate and sniffing the food, at least she didn’t burn it or put plants in it like she usually did with breakfast.

“Why is it you only eat meat?” Superboy asked as he sat next to him.

“Just used to it, I’ve never really ate vegetables or fruits back on the island, even when the scientists were there. It probably has to do with my biology too, being half velociraptor and all,” he answered with a shrug.

Superboy nodded looking uncomfortable. “So…uh…what happened to your family—well human family? Did you ever know them?”

Onyx stopped and put his fork down. What did happen to his human relatives? Did he even have any?

“You don’t have to answer, we were just curious,” M’gann stated sensing his unease.

“It…It’s ok,” he reassured. “To be honest, it’s something I’ve never really thought about…I asked a few times when I was younger—I think—and I never got an answer,” he shrugged eating his food. “So I just gave up asking; my best guess is they died is some plane crash or shipwreck on the island, somehow I survived and I ended up in Wu’s custody”

“So you don’t know anything?” M’gann asked.

“That’s what I just said, for all I know I was grown in an egg or pod like the rest of the dinosaurs,” he chuckled bitterly, getting up and putting his plate away. “Thanks for the breakfast, M’gann. You’re getting better at cooking.”

“Says the guy who can’t cook,” Superboy smirked.

“Like you can do any better, at least I can survive in the wild,” he replied heading down to the training room.

“Took you long enough,” Wonder Woman smiled, “I thought I was going to have to send a search party.”

“Sorry, I slept late, then I had to get breakfast, and I got caught up talking with the guys and…”

Diana laughed. “It’s alright, it’s good to see you acting like a normal teenager. So, how’ve you been adapting to the team?”

Onyx shrugged. “Ok, I guess. I seem to get along with most of them pretty well, but Wally and I don’t seem to get along much, and I’m still uncomfortable around Megan. It’s still taking some getting used to though, I’m still half expecting to wake up surrounded by jungle and hatchlings either cuddling against me or playing with my hair, tail, or ears.”

“Why don’t you feel comfortable around M’gann?” Diana interjected, interrupting his rambling.

“I don’t like that she can get into my head, it doesn’t seem natural.”

“And Wally?”

“I think our personalities clash,” he shrugged. How was he supposed to know? Wally had been hostile to him since day one.

“Well, I’m glad to hear that you’re adjusting well. And I know that getting used to this is hard, trust me, moving to a new home always is, but I know it’ll get better,” she reassured. “Now, let’s practice with your new gear, you’re excellent at close-range and hand-to-hand combat, but your distance stuff needs work.” She typed on the monitor and several holo-targets came up. “We’ll start with the whip. Your goal is to hit the center of the target as fast as you can as many times as you can.”

Onyx nodded pulling out the long gold and red braided weapon. Taking aim, he went one swing at a time, hitting the edge of some, missing others, and getting close on the rest. Looking up at his score and time he winced, he had a lot of work to do.

“Alright, that’s not bad,” Diana said, “but it needs work, but let’s see how your progress with your lasso is first. Then I want to see if you’d be willing to add a new piece, one I think you might work better with.”

Nightmare nodded wrapping up the whip, before he uncoiled the lasso and looked at the targets before turning to Wonder Woman. “So…do I use these targets, or…?”

“Let’s try against me,” she said and he let his tail drop, God, he was in trouble. “And you have to try and catch me in it, you can’t always run up to an enemy.”

Gulping, Nightmare made the loop as big as he could before they began circling each other.

Diana watched as he eyed her, he was doing well on refraining on his initial instincts to attack first, during their first days he would always attack as soon as he saw an opening. It was good, but at least now he was more willing to lead his opponent into striking first. Her eyes flicked over to his back watching the muscles tense, she almost missed it due to the fact he didn’t crouch like he usually did before he attacked.

She rolled out of the way as the lasso flew her way, grabbing the rope, Wonder Woman yanked him towards her, before using the large loop to trap him.

Onyx glared up at her from where’d he’d fallen on the ground, his tail thumping against the training deck floor. “Good for a first try,” Diana smiled loosening the rope and helping her protégé to his feet, “can you tell me where you went wrong?”

“Um…made the loop too big?”

“That’s one of the things you messed up,” she nodded. “Too big of a loop gives you less rope to throw.” Pulling out her own lasso, she made a loop. “You want one about this size: large enough to catch something big, but small enough so you don’t use all that rope for no reason. What other mistakes were made?”

“I, uh, didn’t let go of the rope when you yanked?” he winced.

She shook her head. “Don’t let the enemy take your weapon away,” she said, “you shouldn’t have let me tie you up. But can you tell me what your biggest error was?”

He shook his head, seemingly lost.

“Your tell gave you away again,” she stated and he groaned. “Now, good news I almost missed it this time, you didn’t crouch, but I saw the way you tensed like you wanted to.”

“I’m working on it,” he murmured blushing around his scales.

“At least you managed to throw the lasso in the right direction this time. Let’s try again.”

He nodded, pulling the rope back and creating a new loop before their training began again.

This time, Diana didn’t even take two steps before he threw the lasso and managed to pin her arms to her side. She lifted her leg and stepped on the rope, attempting to yank him off his feet, only for him to wrap the rope around his arm and pull back. The rope slid from under Wonder Woman’s foot to her knee and Nightmare used his tail to pull the rope, hard.

Falling to her back she gazed up as he appeared over her. “Was that good?”

“Beginner’s luck,” she smiled untying herself. “But if you keep working like that you’ll be just fine.” She got up brushing her hair out of her face. “Now, let’s go back to working on your whip.”

“Aw. What about the new thing?”

“Let’s get you proficient in these two things first.”

-.-

** Batcave **

Bruce typed on the Batcompter, finally able to submit Onyx’s DNA into the missing person’s database. It had taken forever for the computer to separate the human DNA from the velociraptor. Far longer than had been anticipated; it was like he heard: Dr. Wu liked to go all out when splicing each individual genome for his assets. Now it would hopefully be only a day or two before they got a result and he could finally go after Dr. Wu for doing illegal genetic experimentation on a child.

“Black Canary—13”

“So how was the equipment?” he asked as she walked up.

“A few bumps at the beginning, but he’s a fast learner and Diana’s an eager teacher, he’ll have it down in no time,” she answered. “Any luck yet?”

“Unfortunately it took longer than anticipated for the computer to separate the human and raptor DNA, I just submitted it into the international missing person’s database, if he or someone he’s related to is missing we’ll know,” Batman answered.

“And if we don’t get any results?” she asked.

“Then I’ll have to test a few other theories I have in mind, all of which will be much more difficult to prove.”

“Which are?”

“He was never reported missing, he was adopted by Dr. Wu or one of the other scientists, or he’s a clone,” he stated, “But all of those will take time to get results from; I’ll have to go through numerous birth and adoption records from multiple countries, as well as DNA matches for potential donors—willing or unwilling—for the cloning process.”

Canary pressed her lips together, looking at the data and the picture of the teen. “Well…can we narrow down the countries?”

“He’s likely European or American,” Batman replied. “He bears no similarities or genetic flags for Asian, Hispanic, Arabic, or African descent.”

Dinah frowned, “Any guesses at least?” Batman didn’t respond and she sighed, “So basically we’re no closer than before?”

“Exactly,” he sighed.

“Let me know if anything comes up,” she said turning to leave.

“Any luck on triggering his memory?”

“M’gann informed me that when she and Conner asked about his family he was very confused, said he didn’t know and gave up asking when he never got any answers.”

He nodded, even if the boy hadn’t remembered a detail like that told him something: he was with Wu long enough to learn to not question certain things after a period of time, and long enough to notice when he felt like he had to behave after possibly pushing on an issue too much. This was probably why Nightmare seemed acutely aware of when people were frustrated or angry around him, and while the boy certainly didn’t try to please people like Miss Martian, he could tell who he felt was safe to question and who he had to keep his head down around. He did it with Wally on the first day he was introduced to the team, whatever Kid Flash said obviously offended him, but Onyx kept his head down and simply answered the question.

The reasoning behind this kind of behavior was something Bruce had always hated to see in children. Thankfully, the boy was improving greatly, and now only showed such behavior around him and Leaguers he didn’t know, and even the latter was becoming less common.

As Canary left, sighing, he turned on the surveillance cameras to check on his ward. Watching he frowned and shook his head as he saw him mess up from frustration. “Alfred, have Dick meet me on the basketball court.”


	11. Beyond the Depths

Chapter 11

**A/N: do not own YJ or JP series.**

**/comm/**

**“Raptor”**

**_Telepathy_ **

**Alright, this may look like a repost, but I guarantee it’s not, and I would not skip this chapter. Not if you don’t want to miss some _interesting_ developments ;)**

** Gotham City: August 27, 6:10 **

Onyx grunted as he was slammed into the wall, by Clayface. Getting to his feet, he looked to see that M’gann was already down.

Kid Flash ran forwards, and attempted to punch the mud pile, when the clay wrapped around his leg, slamming face-first into the ground before tossing him into one of the many crates in the storehouse.

Superboy charged and leapt onto their opponent, but instead of falling to the ground as expected, the clay slowly surrounded him and dragged him inside. looking at each other, Robin and Nightmare charged, tossing a few explosives into the clay, they exploded, tossing the clay away and exposing Superboy. Racing over, the hybrid jumped and yanked their teammate out.

“How is he?” Robin asked running over.

“I’m—” the clone began.

“Watch out!” Nightmare warned jumping over the clay wall as it swung by, slamming Robin and Superboy into the crates, knocking both out cold.

Clayface turned and looked at both him and Aqualad, before splitting into two. “Great,” Nightmare muttered as one charged him. Rolling under a swing, he used his claws, to slice through his hand, knocking it off, only for Clayface to laugh as it regrew. Swinging both his arms, Clayface knocked Nightmare out of the air as he attempted to jump between the incoming clay whips, sending him flying though a post, where he fell unconscious.

Aqualad grunted as he slammed into the wall, looking up he saw the two halves merging back together. The hand morphed into a mallet as the mud minster raised it above his head to crush the team leader with a roar.

The ceiling caved in as Batman came through, tossing two Bat-a-rangs, they exploded in his arm. Punching the ground where the Batman landed, Clayface growled as he backflipped out of the way, pulling out his taser, and shocking him. The electricity forcing him to destabilize into a puddle.

-.-

** Mt. Justice: 7:45 **

“I need to talk to Aqualad,” Batman stated as the team bridged in. “The rest of you, hit the showers, get your injuries treated, and head home.”

“Home? I am home,” Superboy muttered walking past.

Robin and Aqualad walked up to Batman, who looked at his protégé. “Just Aqualad.”

Robin nodded and walked towards the showers, glancing back at his mentor.

“I am sorry the team performed poorly—” Kaldur began.

“The team performed adequately, the problem was you. You’re their leader and your head wasn’t in the game.”

“No you are…correct,” he sighed in defeat. “As of late I am not convinced I even belong on the surface world. For so many years it filled my every thought, but now that I’m here, my dreams are all Atlantis.”

“Atlantis, or someone you left behind?” Batman questioned. “You can split your time between the surface and the sea, but not your mind. You are either here one-hundred percent, or you need to walk away. Make a decision Kaldur and make it soon.”

-.-

** Poseidonis: August 28, 13:00 **

“Recognized: Aqualad—B02.”

Swimming out of the Zeta Tube, Kaldur swam towards Aquaman. “Greetings Kaldur’ahm,” he said.

“King Orin,” he said making a salute.

The two turned and began swimming away from the tubes towards the underwater city. “The Queen and I are hosting an intimate dinner tonight. Will you attend?”

“Your Majesty, there is someone special I was hoping to see today,” he began.

Aquaman chuckled. “You may bring a friend.”

“Thank you, My King.”

“Until tonight.”

Going their separate ways, Kaldur swam towards the Conservatory. Swimming past numerous students practicing magic, he stopped by one of his old friends, who was working on one of his projects.

“I’ll never finish in time,” he whined as he summoned more pieces to fill the piece.

“Topo, the workmanship is magnificent,” he praised.

Topo jumped. “Kaldur! Don’t do that! Wait! Here! Watch, listen,” holding out his hand the pieces on the wall began to move. “Our beloved King was at the mercy of the vile Ocean Master. But two young students, Kaldur’ahm and Garth, intervened; allowing the Aquaman to triumph. Impressed with their valor, Aquaman offered both young heroes the chance to be his protégé. Garth chose to continue his studies at the Conservatory of Sorcery, but the brave Kaldur, accepted his King’s offer and became Aqualad!” Finishing he turned back to the older student. “Kaldur? I mean, Aqualad?”

“Oh, it’s very good.”

“Thanks, I hope you don’t mind that I inserted myself in the background, even though I wasn’t actually there…”

“It’s fine,” he smiled. “Do you know where I may find Tula now? And Garth?”

“On the roof at their studies.”

“Thank you.” Swimming up he saw that both his friends were locked in an intense duel. Garth fired at Tula, but she dodged, sending two magic disks at him. planning himself on the ground, Garth made a shield, blocking her attack.

“Your technique is excellent, but your skills remain predictable. Combat sorcery requires improvisation,” a woman said before looking to see their guest. “Kaldur’ahm! It’s so good to see you.”

“Kaldur!” Tula greeted.

“Apologies My Queen, I did not mean to interrupt,” he said.

“It’s fine, I have another class, will I see you at dinner?” she asked.

“Yes Your Majesty.”

“We shall talk then,” she said leaving.

“You look well Kaldur,” Tula said hugging him.

“Yes, surface life agrees with you,” Garth agreed.

“You speak as if I’ve been gone for years, but it’s only been—”

“Two months.”

“Oh…that long. Then I shall make up for lost time. Tula, would you accompany me to dinner tonight at the palace?” Kaldur asked before looking to Garth. “I wish I could invite you as well my friend.”

“I made that choice long ago,” he replied.

“We have another class, but I’ll see you tonight,” she said taking Garth’s arm and they swam away.

Smiling, Aqualad began to swim around the city, looking to see what had changed in his absence. Turning a corner, he was caught off guard when something slammed into him.

“Ow.”

Rubbing his forehead, he looked down to see a dark-skinned girl sitting on the ocean floor rubbing her own head. She had blue scales covering most her body with striping of lighter and darker blues, condensed on her back and upper arms while appearing sparsely on her lower arms and legs; she had teal eyes, a powerful tail that reminded him much of a crocodile’s, some webbing between her fingers, some fins on her legs, long waist-length dark hair that faded to blonde at the tips with blue highlights, finned ears, gills on her neck like his own, and she wore a pair of black leggings and a grey top that reminded him of Tula’s.

“I’m sorry, I did not see you there,” he said helping her up, his own blue eyes meeting her green ones.

“It’s fine, I was going too fast anyways,” she smiled showing a set of sharp teeth. “By the way, do you know the fastest way to the east reef? I was meeting some friends there, but like the genius I am I got myself lost.”

Kaldur nodded, she must’ve been new to Poseidonis. “Of course, just fallow this path to the Conservatory of Sorcery, then take a right, about two pathways down take a left and you’ll be there.”

“Thank you,” she said with a dip of her head.

“I’m Kaldur’ahm.”

“Kuleana,” she replied. “Hope to see you around sometime, thanks again.” With a smile and a wave, the girl swam off, fallowing his directions. She swam to the reef and ducked behind a rock just as drill dug up from below the surface.

“Ma’am get behind us!” a guard ordered as he and his partner swam over.

“Halt intruders!”

Men in dark uniforms began emerging, they shot at the two guards, knocking one out. The other was just stunned, floating down he grabbed his staff, when a force landed on his back and he was knocked out.

“Be more careful,” the girl growled as she stood on the unconscious Atlantean. She glared at Black Manta, her finned ears flattening as she bared her fangs. “You’re late. I spent an hour scoping out the city, had to fake my way as one of them a few times. You were supposed to be here forty-five minutes ago!”

“We had complications,” Manta replied. “All squads report!”

/Beta Squad ready/

/Gamma Squad ready/

/Delta Squad ready/

/Epsilon Squad ready/

“Phase one complete, initiate phase two.”

/All squads report manta stings in place and ready, phase two complete/

“Good, prepare phase three,” she said examining her claws with a smirk.

-.-

“A gigantic echinoderm, frozen, yet still alive. Of course, at this point our data is quite limited, but Dr. Vulko thinks the creature could be very promising…” Prince Orm rambled on about the latest discovery at the science center.

“I am considering rejoining you at the conservatory,” Kaldur whispered to Tula.

“You realize that you left your studies some time ago, you would no longer be in Tula’s class, or Garth’s, not until you were up to pace,” the Queen said.

“Then perhaps I require a tutor.”

“We have an announcement,” Orin said as he and his wife stood up.

“I am with child,” she smiled.

“Oh that’s wonderful!” Tula exclaimed hugging her.

“Congratulations, and heir to the throne at last!” Kaldur said. “My apologies Prince Orm.”

“Please, no one could be more thrilled about this news than I!” Aquaman’s younger brother said hugging him.

“Thank you brother, thanks to you all,” Aquaman said.

/Superman to Aquaman, emergency in Tokyo bay, rendezvous at Watchtower/

“Acknowledged,” he replied. “I must take my leave.” Kissing his wife quickly he turned to his apprentice. “Swim with me.” Nodding, Aqualad fallowed his king towards the Zeta tubes. “Batman has made me aware of your…dilemma. I know from personal experience that it is hard to live there and love here.”

“Recognized: Aquaman—06.”

“I am confident you will make the right choice.”

-.-

Aqualad and Tula swam through one of the reefs within the city. “There is something I must…” they said at the same time.

“I…”

“Please, Tula,” Kaldur said holding his hand up. “I have made a decision. To stay in Atlantis with you, because of you.”

She turned and looked away. “Kaldur, I’m sorry. We wanted to tell you sooner, but Garth and I we are together.”

Kaldur looked down in disappointment when all off a sudden, the buildings behind them exploded.

Hearing more, the two turned to see explosions racking across the city. Swimming off they saw the Manta soldiers firing at the guards, knocking them out.

“Alpha Squad requesting reinforce—ah!”

Swimming towards the palace, they took out a group attacking the Queen and her brother-in-law. “This attack was precision planned. The initial explosions lured our patrols into ambush,” Kaldur informed.

Tula swam past with several men fallowing going under one of the column structures, she turned and fired, making the rock collapse on top of the men.

Making sure the teens were out of the way, the Queen made her manta-ray construct turn, where it swam and rammed through another column structure, taking out another group of the armed men.

Kaldur swung his water whips, grabbing an outcrop of rock, he pulled in down, causing it to crash next to the men, the force sending a ripple that sent them drifting out of position where Tula made a swirling tube that sucked them through and sent them slamming into their partners.

“Tula!” Garth called swimming towards them.

“Garth lookout!” she called, racing over and pushing him out of the way just as one fired, the blast hitting her instead.

“No!”

“Tula!” Swimming over, Kaldur and Garth knelt next to the unconscious girl.

Grouping up, the soldiers fired again when multiple tentacles of magic blocked the attacks, the markings on the Queen spread as she used more power, creating a giant octopus that made a shield with two tentacles, and sent the rest out at the attackers.

“Surface communications are down, we cannot reach King Orin,” Orm informed. “Summon more troops to the palace.”

“The palace was not the only place attacked,” Garth stated. “I witnessed explosions in sectors one, two, three, and five.”

“Nothing in sector four?” Aqualad asked. “Explosions all over the city, except where the science center is located, where your giant sea star is secure.”

“Then it is all a diversion,” Orm agreed. “But with the King away I must protect the Queen, and the heir.”

“I don’t need protection!” she snapped.

“No Mera, if you were injured my brother would never forgive me.”

“The prince is right My Queen, this battle is mine.”

“And mine,” Garth said only to get a glare from his friend.

“Your place is with Tula,” he growled swimming off.

-.-

Black Manta burst from under the floor, where the last guards and scientists stood ready to defend the sea star. The men fired when another explosion went off behind them, and the girl swam out punching them in the face using her super-strength, knocking them out cold.

“Objective secure,” Manta said.

“Don’t jinx it,” the girl said looking over the thing they were sent to get. “You know, I was expecting something more…exciting.”

“Manta sub! Initiate phase four!”

A large sub drove over the complex, and a beam came out of the bottom, starting to melt through the roof.

-.-

Outside, Aqualad typed the entrance code, sensing something behind him he grabbed his weapon only to find it was Garth. “You should be with Tula.”

“The Queen watches over Tula, and sent me after you,” he replied as they swam in.

-.-

Sniffing the water, the girl growled as she caught an unwelcome scent. “You two! Handle the intruders!” she snapped pointing at two men.

“How do you know there are intruders?” Manta asked and she scoffed as she swam towards the shadows.

“My sense of smell is ten times as powerful as a shark, they’re here.”

-.-

“You have a plan?” Garth asked, only to turn and find that his partner wasn’t there. “Kaldur?”

Two men swam around the corner and prepared to fire when Aqualad swam down and used his maces to knock them out. Looking at Garth, he rolled his eyes as he saw his friend looking at him in shock. “I too have my studies.”

-.-

Manta glanced at the girl and she grinned wickedly before swimming back to another spot as the two soldiers returned. Getting the memo from the Mosasaurus-Atlantean hybrid, he swam up to them. “Impressive isn’t it? Aqualad?”

They whipped around and began firing at him, swimming back, he shot beams out of his eyes, which hit them and knocked the back. Removing his helmet, Aqualad used his water bearers to make swords, and block the incoming shots. Ducking another shot, he made a whip and wrapped it around one man’s leg, dragging him over and using him as a shield as another shot came. Hitting the man instead of him.

“Such a waste! You really have no ambition beyond serving Aquaman? Aren’t schools of others willing to die for their king?!” Manta snarled. “This fool for example!”

Finally removing his helmet, Garth cried out as his friend’s whip wrapped around him, and dragged him out of the way of the incoming shots. “Get your head in the game,” Kaldur scolded, releasing his friend.

“I summon the power of the tempest!” Casting the spell, Garth swam out and made a vortex, trapping several men.

Narrowing her eyes, Kuleana swam down and slammed him into a wall. Grabbing his arm, she hurled him into Aqualad and he was blocking attacked from Manta and a few of his men.

“You sure took your sweet time!” Manta snapped and Kaldur stared in shock, it was the girl he helped earlier!

“Call it payback for earlier!” she snarled looking up as the roof was finally melted and a hook began lowering. “Keep them occupied!” Swimming up she attached the sea star to the cable and gave a thumbs up.

“Garth! The cable!” Kaldur called.

Coming out from behind the beam, he shot a blast, effectively severing the cable, dropping the sea star down. However, before it hit the bottom the girl caught it. “If you want the job done right, you have to do it yourself,” she grumbled as she began dragging the massive block of ice up towards the sub.

Manta, turned his back on Aqualad to help her, when the protégé’s whips wrapped around him. “Garth!”

Ducking a few more shots, Garth aimed a magic disk, and sent if flying straight into the girl, sending her into the wall, causing the ice to fall and break.

Roaring in anger, Manta broke out of Kaldur’s grip. “IF I CAN’T HAVE IT NO ONE CAN!” he shouted firing a missile at the icy creature, making it explode. Swimming in front of Kaldur, Garth made a shield blocking them from the explosion.

Manta raced over and grabbed the girl. Yanking her arm out of his grip, they swam up towards the sub. Climbing in she hissed angrily as she wrung out her hair. “That went well.”

“Shut up Seaspray.”

“Make me Manta,” she snarled grabbing him and pinning him up on the wall with one hand, “remember, I don’t report to you. So, regardless of our family relations, _Father_ , I am not inclined to obey you.” Dropping him, she turned and walked away, tapping her comm. “B5 reporting in: we failed to achieve the objective, we’ll have to use Plan B.”

/Understood B5, your orders are to return to base. A2 out/

-.-

** September 3: 21:08 **

“Our city was heavily damaged, and many Atlanteans were injured, but it could have been far worse,” Aquaman said.

“This contains all the survived,” Prince Orm said holding a container with a small piece of flesh inside. “The sea star is already starting to regenerate, it requires further research, but with the dome compromised and the science center in ruins, we are not equipped to do such…perhaps the surface world can do better.”

“I’m sure they’ll be eager to try,” Orin replied. “Kaldur?”

“Call me Aqualad, My King,” he said with a salute.

-.-

“Kaldur…I...we…that is…” Tula stuttered.

“I wish you both the best,” he said hugging them.

“Recongnized: Aqualad—B02”

“Have you ever wondered what would’ve happened if I stayed behind, and you became Aqualad?”

“No,” Garth said.

“No, neither have I,” he smiled.

-.-

** Mt. Justice **

“Made your decision?” Batman asked.

“I am here, one-hundred percent.”

“Good, because you have a mission.”


End file.
